PS ^71 



PS 



DS 479 

INDIAN PROBLEMS 

Copy 1 



FOR 



ENGLISH CONSIDERATION 



A LETTER 



TO THE COUNCIL OF 



'^ht Rational liberal Jffberation, 



BY 

WILLIAM DIGBY, CLE., 

HONORARY MEMBER OF THE COBDEN CLUB ; HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE INDIAN 
FAMINE RELIEF FUND, 1877-78; AUTHOR OP "THE FAMINE CAMPAIGN IN SOUTHERN 
INDIA, 1876-78;" "FORTY YEARS IN A CROWN COLONY;" EDITOR OF THE "WESTERN 

DAILY MERCURY, ' ETC. 



Published for the National Liberal Federation. 



i88i. 






PLYMOUTH t 
liATIMER AND SON, FRANKFOKT PRINTING WORKS. 



\ t?^6C( 



TO THE COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL LIBERAL 

FEDERATION. 



Gentlemen,^ 

In the pages of this Letter it is my object to bring ^ijetter** 
before you — and, through you, the EngHsh pubHc — a few facts 
with reference to the people of India and their country, with 
the hope that your organisation may become helpful in bring- 
ing about those reforms which shall make it possible for our 
Indian fellow-subjects to work out their own advancement 
with well-grounded confidence and certainty. Lord North- 
brook, speaking at Birmingham some time ago, remarked, wards indii 
' There is one simple test which we may safely apply to all 
Indian questions. Let us never forget that it is our duty 
to govern India, not for our own profit and advantage, but for 
the benefit of the natives of India.' We, as a nation, are not 
now acting upon that principle. We err, through ignorance 
rather than from ill-intent. I know of no organisation so well 
able to properly instruct and guide the English people in 
rightly understanding and wisely assisting the inhabitants 
of India, in the way of free government, than that which you 
direct. It goes without saying that, in advanced Liberals, the Indian Reform 
Indian people find their best friends. Practically, all that ^ ^^''^ ^^^^y- 
has been done in the Commons' House of ParHament for 
India has been done by men whom the Federation delights to 
honour — by, for example — such a man as John Bright, whose 
efforts to uplift India are approved by the Party of which he 
is a trusted leader. On the other hand, such means as would 
infuse native life and vigour into the currents of Indian national 
and local administration have been opposed by Conservatives, 



of whom the late Lord Lytton was a typical instance That 

noble Lord, when in the House of Commons, deprecated the 

Indian Govern- Consideration of Indian questions by that assembly, for this 

t™EngUshFree- reasou : Our doings in India, he said, were often of so 

^™' doubtful a nature that English freedom would be corrupted 

by too-familiar acquaintance with the course of proceedings in 

the empire.* It is, therefore, in accordance with the fitness 

of things that my attempt to direct the attention of my 

countrymen to the condition of our fellow-subjects in India 

should be made through the National Liberal Federation. 

India a larger In India, Great Britain possesses a larger Ireland. The 

proportion is as two hundred and fifty to five : India has 
two hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants ; Ireland a little 
over five millions. Probably before the present century has 
passed away the British people will find themselves face to face 
in India with difficulties like those which, in connection with 
Ireland, have caused much trouble and concern during the 
past fifty years, culminating in the block of legislation which 
marked the Session of the House of Commons in 1881, when 
' — unfortunate, but necessary, combination — the twin efforts 
of coercion and amelioration were being carried out. The 
state of things which, economically, has worked great woe in 
Ireland exists in a larger degree in India : far more mischief is 
thereby worked than the people of this country have any con- 
ception of. This is patent to an unprejudiced observer ; it is 
ofsciai utter- pl^hi and Unmistakable even to official apologists. If the Indian 
^"dlfectTof^^^ official lives who might be expected to prophesy smooth things 
British Rule, ^f ji^^ia's futurc, Mr. W. W. Hunter, CLE., LL.D., of the 
Bengal Civil Service, the compiler of the Imperial Gazetteer of 
India, and author of a number of valuable works on the Empire, 
is that official. In the pages of his books is to be found the 

'^ The occasion when this remark was made was the debate in the House of Commons, 
on the transference of India from "John Company" to the Crown. Lord (then Sir E. 
Bulwer) Lytton said : — "For my own part, I own to a wholesome dread of hon. gentle- 
men cramming themselves with blue books, and coming down to the House with an elaborate 
speech about Kajahs and Nawabs, conceived in accordance with the respective interests of 
Party ; sometimes, as the case may be, to defend some more than ordinary act of duplicity 
by which we had annexed a kingdom, or, on the other hand, to declaim against some 
nieasure which might be necessary to the stern necessities of oriental rule, but painful to 
the feelii)gs of an English popular assembly." Injustice . . . painful to the feelings 
of Enghshmen I 



Indian Oflfioials 



strongest possible condemnation of our rule. As I shall show 
later on, Mr. Hunter, who is regarded as holding a brief for the 
British Administration, and who is recognised as a most able 
advocate, is constrained, by the force of the facts with which 
he has to deal, to make most damaging statements respecting 
the present condition, and future prospects, of India. 

To those who desire that such reforms shall be carried out 
in India as will tend to remove, at least, the grosser evils of our 
rule, the testimony of such an authority is of the utmost value. 
It has become an article of belief in some influential quarters 
that Indian officials cannot err ; when, therefore, we find in cannot err. 
their statement of the case for India ample justification for 
action, the course is greatly cleared. The time has arrived 
when the actual facts regarding our Administration should be 
known. It is a matter of no small importance that the people 
of India are opening their eyes to the condition of things at 
present existing. More than that, without any particular ill- 
will to the British authority, they are threatening stormy 
■weather in the near future. Year by year we are educating, 
to the highest English standard, hundreds of thousands of 
Indian youths. A fair percentage of these prove exceptionally Indian Educa- 

.. ^ . tion : probable 

well-fitted to take part in ihe affairs of their country. They are effects. 
a cquainted with the history of their own land, as well as that of 
other nations, and have sufficient courage to enable them to say 
those things which they believe to be just, and, in a constitu- 
tional manner, to struggle for the attainment of what they 
consider to be their rights. They do not find, from the point of 
view of the son of the soil, their country all that could be desired, 
and they are not prepared contentedly to acquiesce in the 
continuance of the present state of things. To them, as they 
regard India, Pope's well-known line is emphatically untrue : 
they do not believe, 

" Whatever is, is best." 

What the leaders of the Land League have been in Le^^^eS^f^tte 
Irel md, the men we are now educating will be in India, unless f^t^e. 
the occasion for agitation is removed. The supremely wise 
course for adoption in regard to India is always to anticipate 



agitation, and, by easy steps, to lead the people into the enjoy- 
ment of the larger liberty which, almost unconsciously to 
themselves, they are yearning for, and which, assuredly, their 
country needs. 

Sufferings of the Over and above the bad condition of India, from the 

people. i-ii'i •> •• 1 

philosopher's and economists position, are the ever-present 
and terrible sufferings which the people have, year by year, to 
endure. There is nothing in Ireland — notwithstanding 
Colonel (' Chinese ') Gordon's statement that he had seen 
as great misery in the cabins of Connemara as anywhere in 
Asia or Africa — to compare with the want and distress in 
which millions of Indians live from the days of their infancy 
to the time when the funeral pyre is lighted over their 
remains, or their bodies are laid in shallow graves. Although 
the Indians are a patient and long-suffering race, there is a 
limit even to their patience. When the agitation, which 
threatens, really comes, it will be largely fed by the sore 
suffering and misery of these half-starved multitudes. 

La'imii?^^^^** Nothing that is still unaccomplished can be more certain 

than that — unless a radical change in administration happens — 
there is great trouble ahead for the English rulers of India. 
Common prudence would, therefore, demand that we should 
take such steps as it may be in our power to take to remove 
the occasions for disaffection, and to ease the inevitable 
strain. But higher reasons than those of mere prudence may, 
and should, guide us. We have, of our own motion and 
unasked, assumed the responsibility of governing the peoples 
of India, and must so acquit ourselves that the maximum of 
good attainable, and not the minimum of accidental 
advantage, when our own ends have been served, shall be the 
resultant. It is my belief — a belief born of intimate friend- 
ship with many Indians of all classes in their own country — 
How trouble ^^^^ much of the evil which now impends may be averted, if 

may be averted. Englishmen and Indians can be brought to know one another 
better, and to understand each other's position to a fuller 
extent than they now do. It is with the hope of doing some- 



thing towards bringing about, in however humble a measure, 
such an understanding, that this Letter is written, and that the 
attention of the National Liberal Federation is directed 
towards some of the more important features of Indian 
political and social life. Even the most busy of English 
statesmen and English men of business can, if they will, 
devote some attention to Indian affairs. Proof of this is to interest Ln"ndia^ 
be found in the interest which Mr. Bright, for many years, 
has shown in India. There have, in recent times, been few 
busier men in the United Kingdom than the right hon. 
gentleman. Yet he has been able to thoroughly acquaint 
himself with India and its real needs. This was indicated 
twenty-three years ago, in the speeches which he delivered in 
the House of Commons in 1858 and 1859, when the Indian 
Bills of those years were under discussion. Those speeches 
revealed so complete a mastery of the essentials of Indian 
politics, that, in so far as Indian reform progresses towards a 
satisfactory basis, it will be found that it does so on the lines 
laid down by Mr. Bright when our Eastern Empire passed 
under the direct dominion of the Crown. 

I venture to hope that the presentation of facts in this Good points in 
Letter, and the observations which are founded thereupon, will s 

lead those who are not insensible to the responsibilities we \ 

bear towards India to realise that our fellow-subjects in the 
East are like-minded with ourselves in all that constitutes 
good citizenship and law-abidingness. This should lead to i 

the opinion that the same principles of procedure which have i 

brought prosperity and contentment to us — though those ] 

principles may be varied in their mode of working — will 
ensure like prosperity and contentment to Indians also. If, 
in any degree, the middle wall of partition which prevents 
the one race understanding the other were broken down, or 
if a breach only were made in it, much would be achieved 
that would serve to prevent calamities in the future that other- 1 

wise must occur. England and India are linked together : it I 

is, above all things, desirable there should be a good under- 
standing between their respective inhabitants. ; 



I.-THE PEOPLE OF INDIA AS THEY ARE. 



Point of view 



in 

Indians. 



estfmaS ^H ^ ^^^^^^^1^^ the character of a people, very much 




depends upon the point of view from which they 
are regarded. For example, in the month of June 
last, a disturbance, in which certain American 
runners were hustled, occurred on the running grounds at 
Aston, a few miles from Birmingham. Immediately, the cry 
was raised in certain metropolitan Conservative papers, * See, 
these are the people who send Mr. Bright and Mr. 
Chamberlain to Parliament ! This is Democracy ! These be 
your gods, oh ! Radical Englishmen !' Arguing from the con- 
duct of a few roughs, who may or may not have belonged to 
Birmingham, the writers in the papers referred to, because 
they disHke the political proclivities of the great midland town, 
stigmatized the whole population as ruffians. They described 
the Birmingham people generally in terms applicable only to 
a few individuals 'of the baser sort,' whose identity with 
Birmingham was not proved. The same principle is too often 
acted upon in descriptions of the character of the inhabitants 
of India. You question two men who have lived in the country 
Contradictory ^^''''^ its peoples. One declares them to be ' niggers,'— the 

descriptions, woudcr will be if he does not say * damned niggers,' utterly 

untrustworthy, and very low in the scale of civilization, in fact, 
altogether beneath the notice of an Englishman. The other, 
on the contrary, will declare that Indian folk are very com- 
mendable folk indeed ; that he has found true and hearty 
friends among them ; that he believes them, if fairly treated, 
capable of filling an important place among the peoples of the 
world. The one observer looks for defects, and finds defects, 
which, no doubt, exist in some degree, but he sees defects only ; 
the other is not blind to defects, but he is more anxious to see 
good qualities than bad, and, as a necessary consequence, good 
qualities are displayed towards him. 



An incident at 



I am glad to be able to testify that my experience of ^Personal testi. 
Indians has been of the latter kind. I found the Indians with 
whom I came into contact during my residence in the East — 
and I had peculiar opportunities, from a combination of circum- 
stances, arising out of my famine reHef and journalistic duties, 
of knowing intimately many of all ranks and conditions— men 
whom it was a pleasure to know, men with whom it was a 
privilege to work. If I could but make them known to 
Enghshmen in any degree as they really are, I should be 
very glad, for I am satisfied my countrymen would then see 
that the people of India were worthy of any trouble which 
their fellow-subjects in Great Britain might take on their be- 
half If I do not succeed in persuading some to take a great 
deal of trouble on behalf of our Indian friends, then this Letter 
will have been written in vain : the object I have in view will 
fail in its accomplishment. When, a hundred years ago, the 
fort of Arcot, in Southern India, was besieged by the '^^■'^^^• 
French, English and Madras troops were shut up together. 
Provisions ran short ; famine stared the garrison in the face. 
At length, when the worst came to the worst, and scarcely any 
food remained, the Madras Sepoys begged that their European 
comrades would eat the rice provided for the daily meal, while 
they would be content with the water in which it was boiled. 
The Sepoys urged that Englishmen, in an unaccustomed 
climate, needed more sustenance than did they who were ' to 
the climate born,' and were better able to bear tropical priva- 
tion. The story is typical. It is not an isolated or accidental 
incident. An Indian, whatever his caste, or creed, or 
nationality, delights to manifest respect towards Europeans, 
when the latter prove themselves worthy of regard. Surely 
English electors can spare a little time for effort on behalf of 
such a people as this, and are ready to attempt those reforms 
which shall lead the people of India to a better and more 
self-respecting position than they now occupy. 

I know that the ordinary European in India looks upon Ordinary ideas 
the natives he has to do with, or of whom he hears now and " 
again, as exceptionally stupid. But I also remember that 



lO 

Cardinal Newman has remarked, in his own incomparable 
manner, that mankind generally has described the lion as a 
pusillanimous beast. Possibly, the lion might say that man 
was cowardly if it were able to describe some of the bipeds 
with whom it had dealings, how, through fear of a lion, they 
ran to places of safely, where they could be secure from its 
strength and courage. The second day after I landed 
in Ceylon, the gentleman with whom I was staying said, of 
the people generally, * If it is possible to do a thing wrongly, 
they will do it. Nov/, mark that coolie ! You will find that he 
puts your box with its front to the wall.' Sure enough, the 
coolie did so. If I had been a passing visitor to the East, 
as, for instance, Mr. Anthony Trollope was to Ceylon 
a few years ago, I might have gone away with notions as 
erroneous respecting the people as he did regarding the 
island generally — erroneous observations which, by a system 
of co-operative journalism, were circulated over the greater 
part of the United Kingdom. 

Population. There are over two hundred and fifty millions of people 

in India. Ninety per cent, are engaged in agricultural 
operations, either as small landowners — to be exact, as tenants 
with fixity of tenure, and occupancy rights in the soil they 
cultivate, — or as labourers. Their condition is so wretched 
that it has been declared by one who is at present occupying 
a high administrative position in India that at least half of 
those engaged in agriculture do not know what it is, from 
year's end to year's end, to have their appetite thoroughly 
satisfied. The most favourable present-day picture of India, 
viz., that by Dr. Hunter, in his pamphlet, ' England's Work 
in India,' and in his Gazetteer, reveals the terrible fact that 

Forty mUlions FORTY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE INSUFFICIENTLY FED,* 

ungrypeop e ^^^^ ^^^ j^ ^ State of contiuual scmi- Starvation. In ten years, 
as Mr. Caird, C.B., has pointed out, the forty miUions will 



* «<■ 



"England's Work in India," by W. W. Hunter, C.I.E., LL.D., p. 80. " 
The remaining fifth, or forty millions, go through life on insufficient food." 



II ! 

have become sixty millions — (the land is becoming ex- | 
hausted, inferior soils are coming into cultivation). In a 

word, nearly twice as many people as there exist of all ' 

classes in the United Kingdom are daily starving in India: i 
Will Englishmen, can Englishmen, contemplate such a 

condition of things without making heroic efforts to render its \ 

continuance impossible ? I 
That the pressure upon the population of India must of density of 

r r ir f ^ population ' 

necessity be great will be apparent when the density of ' 

population per square mile is considered. In British India \ 

there are 211 persons to the square mile. It will be readily :• 

seen that, in a country which has practically no manufactures — j 

(there were manufactories In India once, but in that land, j 

as in Ireland, we, in our beneficence, have killed native i 

manufacturing enterprise) — the struggle for life must be most i 
severe. It was discovered, by the Famine Commissioners in 

1879, that, in a portion of Bengal, allowing for women | 

and children, a population of twenty-four millions were j 

struggling to live upon fifteen millions of acres, or a Httle i 

more than half-an-acre each. j 
. To continue the comparison with England : Forty-two chi^fl?^^|gricui- i 
per cent., or nearly half the British population, live in towns *'^^^- 
of twenty thousand inhabitants and upwards. In India only 

one-twentieth of the population reside In towns. Trustworthy ! 

authority says, * Whenever the numbers of a people exceed ; 

one to the acre, or 640 to the square mile, except in suburban ; 

districts, or in irrigated tracts, the struggle for existence i 

becomes hard. At half-an-acre a-plece the struggle is very \ 
hard. In such districts a good harvest yields just sufficient 
food for the people ; and thousands of lives depend each 

autumn on a few inches, more or less, of rainfall. The i 

... .' 

Government may. by great efforts, feed the starving in time | 

of actual famine ; but it cannot stop the yearly work of 

disease and death among a steadily underfed people! * 

* Imperial Gazetteer of India CTrubner & Co., London), vol. iv., p. 163. 

\ 



12 

petpie.''"''^'*^®'^ ' A STEADILY UNDERFED PEOPLE !' This IS one of the 

facts I wish my fellow-countrymen could apprehend : I 
am confident they would not, if they realised the truth, be 
content to let things run their course without an attempt at 
amelioration. There should be no mistaking the full meaning 
of the expressions I have quoted. On official estimates, — 
which always err on the favourable side, which always 
minimise (unconsciously, no doubt) such facts as I am 
dealing with, — one person in every six in India is in a condition 
of gradual starvation^ and this through no fault of his own. 
In addition, consider also this farther fact, viz., that; during 
Millions ^^c past twenty years, nearly half-a-million persons per 
starved to death g^^num, on an average, have died in India from absolute want 
of food. The particulars are as follow : — 

Deaths. 
Famine in Upper India, 1861 ... ... ... ... ... 500,000 

,, Orissa, Behar, and N. Madras, 1866 1,500,000 

„ Rajputana and Central India, 1869 ... ... 400,000 

„ Southern India and Bombay, 1876-1877 ... 5,500,000 
„ North-West Provinces, 1877 750,000 

8,650,000 

Again, I would remark that these are the official state- 
ments, and that they err from under-, rather than from over-, 
statement. 

steadTfy ^^grow- Another important feature of the existing state of affairs 

irgpoor. .^ India, brought about under our rule, if not actually as the 

result of the course of government we adopt, deserves special 
prominence. The people are, year by year, steadily growing 
poorer, and the possibility of earning a livelihood is becoming 
increasingly hard. In the large towns and near the railways, 
new occupations have sprung into existence which find 
employment for thousands, but even here the increase of 
wages has not kept pace with the increase in the price of 
food, and life is a perpetual struggle. Proof of the foregoing 
statements may be given. 



13 

In the Madras Presidency, which certainly is not the 
least efficiently administered part of India, our rule is harder 
to the people than was the native rule, and is steadily growing 
worse. In special returns prepared by the Madras Board 
of Revenue for the Famine Commission, certain details are 
given respecting the price of food which are pregnant with 
matter for grave concern. It would seem that since 1814, 
taking in each case the averasre of five years from that date, increasing 

^ fc. / » cost of foo(J, 

and comparing the first quinquennial period with the last, 

viz., 1 8 14- 1 8 19 with 1870- 1874, the cost of second-sort rice 

has doubled, save and except in the irrigated districts. That 

is, ivhile in England the process of the law has had the 

effect of redncing the price of the staple article of food^ 

and making it cheap and plentiful for every one^ the exactly 

opposite principle has prevailed in India. This statement is as 

true of the ' dry-grain ' food — i.e.^ millet, and the like, as of 

the 'wet' — i.e., rice. Ragi — a species of dry grain — during 

the period mentioned, has doubled in price, the number of 

seers per rupee being, in some cases, 52*6 in 1819-1823, against 

3 5 "4 in 1 870- 1 874 ; while the fluctuations have been from 65 '5 

in i8i4to i6-o in 1866, and much less than sixteen in the 

famine years of 1876 and 1877. Again, testing this by an 

English standard, it is as though the 4-lb. loaf in England compared with 

° ' ^ fcD -i- fc> English prices. 

had gone up from sixpence to two shillings on exceptional 
occasions, and had permanently increased to one shilling, 
without corresponding advantages to the purchaser in the 
way of larger means of earning money. Indeed, when the 
prices have been at their highest range, the opportunities for 
earning money have been the fewest. Cumboo and Cholum, 
* dry ' grains largely used by the people, show the same 
change to a steadily-increasing and permanently-increased 
price, with the difference, as regards Cholum, that the five 
years from i86[ to 1865 were the worst in the returns before 
me as I write. The returns for the period from 1875 to 1880 
are available; they show that period to have been the most 
severe for a century. Old people among the Indians 
say that food is dearer now than it was in their younger 



14 

Old times^ good (jg^yg^ Unfortunately, the remark does not partake of that 
untrustworthy optimism of most old people — that the good 
times were the old times ; official records support the former 
contention. It is true that, as regards the labourer, high 
prices do not affect him so much as they would do if he were 
always paid in money. But, as is well remarked by a writer 
in the official document upon which these observations are 
based, * When prices are high as the result of failure of crop, 
and the employer himself becomes embarrassed, the position 
even of the permanent agricultural servant becomes critical. 
Having been unable to save anything to stand him in stead in 
time of need, and there being no demand for service 
elsewhere, he is thrown entirely on private or public charity 
for means of subsistence.' In the Madras Presidency alone, 
reckoning those dependent upon a labourer as being a wife 
and only one child — saying nothing of aged parents unable to 
work, who are tended with an affection truly admirable- 
there are eight millions of persons in this unfortunate 
condition. As all Hindus marry, and as the average 
number in a family is four, it will be seen that the above 
estimate of the extent of suffering in the landless and 
insufficiently-fed class is extremely moderate. 
Buying power From almost every part of the Empire the same story 

not increasing. ^,Qj^gg^ ^^^ j|. jg ^^^ uccessary that I should burden these 

pages with more details of this character. The cost of food 
to the common people has risen greatly ; wages have not 
increased in the same proportion. Life, I repeat, is yearly 
growing harder to our unfortunate fellow-subjects : the 
horizon of hope is contracting ; their misery is increasing. 

Rice not the It may be mentioned, partly by way of clearing up a 

on y 00 . misconception which largely prevails in this country, that the 
food of the people of India is not, as is generally supposed, 
exclusively rice. An idea to the contrary is current, chiefly 
perhaps, because irrigation works are frequently recommended 
as a panacea against famine. Upon that point — i.e., the 
value of irrigation works as one out of a number of means to 



IS 

be used as a preventive of famine^ — I shall have something to 
say later on. Meanwhile, I may remark that the rice-eating 
population of India is only one-third of the whole. 
Examining by Presidencies and Provinces, it will appear that 
in Madras, where — next to British Burma — the largest ^p^^^^^* .^?'^ 

' ^ ^ wneat or millet. 

quantity of rice is grown, the area under this ' wet crop ' is 
33 per cent, of the whole acreage cultivated ; in Bombay, the 
area is lo per cent. ; in Sind, 17 per cent ; in the Central 
Provinces, 34 per cent. ; and in the Panjab, 5 per cent. In 
none of the Native States is rice grown to any large extent. 
The general food of those people is wheat or millets, known 
generally as ragi, cholum, or jowari. 

What is the character of the people whose means of The character 

^ -^ of the people. 

existence are so precarious, who suffer so severely .? There law abiding and 

^ ^ contented. 

are not more law-abiding, contented, and, on the whole, 
lovable races under the wide sway of the Queen than the 
people of India. These good qualities, however, are not 
developed from the comfort of their surroundings, but exist in 
spite of misery which might be expected to render goodness 
impossible. Their worldly possessions are of the slightest 
value. Their poverty is so acute that English people can 
scarcely realise it. Save that, in the agricultural districts, Miserable 
there is no over-crowding — the kindly climate making it ^^^^' 
possible to sleep in the open air — no Dorsetshire or Devonshire 
labourer's dwelling can be compared with the wretchedness of 
the Indian labourer's 'home.' Further, in England the 
dilapidated and miserable cottages are the exception ; in 
India, for many millions, they are the rule. Save and except 
in towns, where civilisation has created the need, and where 
trade supplies the means for gratifying it, Indian homes have 
few evidences of what we regard as comfort. Even in regard 
to those whose incomes raise them above want, tiled houses 
are rarely seen, and masonry walls are still more rare. Mud 
walls, the same inside as outside, and thatched roofs, 
are the rule. The rooms have no ceiling, the walls 
no sort of ornament or decoration, and the floor is 



i6 

of simple earth, beaten hard. There is nothing of what 
is commonly called furniture. There are no chairs, or tables, 
or couches, or beds ; the people, for the most part, sleep on 
the earthen floor, with only a mat or a small cotton carpet 
beneath them. As I have said, the foregoing description 
applies to ryots, who may be called well-to-do. Of the 
jngsmostiy^pIS Jabourcrs, who are to be counted by millions, a very much 
in food. worse story has to be told. Practically,. all their earnings go 

for food, or are paid in food ; the wretched hut in which the 
labourer lives can scarcely be valued at all. Says one who 
came very closely into contact with the people during an 
epidemic of cholera : — ' It was then I first really learned the 
poverty of the agricultural classes. Sometimes I had four or 
five patients in the same house ; and not a spare rag in the 
house more than the inmates had on their persons, and not 
more than a few days' food.' 

Modes of re- The povcrtv of the Indians, and the fact that a little 

lief in famine. ^ ^ ' 

money goes a very long way among them, were shown in a 
marked manner in the vast amount of good accomplished 
through the fund of nearly ;^8oo,ooo, contributed by England 
and the colonies during 1877 and 1878, for the famine- 
stricken of that period, who were not reached by the means 
provided by the Government. From that sum nearly nine-and- 
Food, a-half-millions of meals were provided ; or partial sustenance for 
a week at a time was granted during the severest period of 
the distress, by the gift of eight annas (one shilling) to 
applicants whose need had been tested. More than one 
hundred and forty-four thousand houses were repaired or 
Rebuilding rebuilt at an average cost of six shillins^s each. It is matter for 

Houses. *^ ° ^ 

gratification that so much could be done with the money ; but, 
on the other hand, it is a distressing thought that the value of 
an ordinary dwelling should be considerably less than one 
pound sterling. Yet another form of charity disbursed from 
the fund in question was that which, literally, set up in 
business men who had been completely ruined. Nearly half- 
\S!^^ ^^"'' a-million of cultivators received assistance, in the shape of 



17 

seed for sowing, the pay of hiring bullocks to plough the land, 

and for like operations ; all this was done at a cost of less than 

ten shillings each individual, taking the average. In a similar 

way, poor artizans were started afresh. A few shillings for ^-^l^^^ting Arti- 

the purchase of yarn or other materials for weaving, or the 

redemption of a loom which had been pawned when food was 

dearest and most scarce, sufficed to raise a weaver from beggary 

to a decent position in life. A quarter of a million people of 

this class were helped at an average of four shillings each. 

Probably, by these statements. Englishmen will be able to 

gather some idea of the utter poverty of the Indian people. 

It is true that the necessities of their position are not so great 

as those of corresponding classes in this country ; but when 

full allowance is made on that score, the condition of things 

remaining is terrible. 

The patience of the men and women with whom we have wonderM 

. 1 ' -I r 1 T-\ • 1- .,, .^, patience of the 

to do IS wonderful. Durmg ordmary periods there is far less people, 
crime among them than among people similarly situated in 
any European country. But it is in times of sore distress, 
when food is five times above its normal price, and not easy to 
get then, that their patience is truly sublime. Take their 
conduct during the awful times of 1876 and 1877 : They saw 
their crops perish before their eyes, and did not consider that 
they must wreak vengeance upon their rulers, or in any way 
disturb the public peace ; they were starving, but not one in a 
hundred thousand resorted to robbery ; it was the exception, 
not the rule, to hear of grain-carts being looted. On the 
beach, at Madras, a few hungry folk might be seen making 
holes in the bags of rice as they were being carted, and 
gathering the grains which fell. On the whole, however, the 
terrible affliction was borne with exemplary conduct The 
district judge at Trichinopoly (Mr. E. Forster Webster), 
speaking of people whose sense of self-respect would not 
allow them to attend a Government relief camp, said, ' The 
closer you look into matters, and the better you know the 
people, the more you see how fearfully widely spread is the 
present distress, borne by the poor creatures in dumb 

B 



i8 

resignation to fate, and with scarcely a murmur/ Had they 
not been thus patient, had they proved as restless as the 
English people would have been, were they situated in like 
circumstances, the possibility of maintaining our supremacy 
in Southern India and in Bombay would, in all probability, 
have been decided against us. 

Kindliness . -.,.,.. - _.- 

towards each Agfam. as to their kindliness towards one another. The 

other. . 

famine gave wonderful proof of the depth and sincerity of this 
quality. We saw it in our own homes, in the privations our 
servants endured, that they might be able to help their 
friends who had no work ; we met with nu merous instances in 
our offices, where the employes visibly grew thinner and more 
woe-begone day by day, the higher wages given by employers 
going to support relatives in greater need than those by whom 
increased pay was received. One native member of the 
Central Famine Committee said to me one day, * I have thirty- 
five people depending upon me for daily food.' It was a com- 
mon experience in our ReUef Camps and in our Day 
Nurseries to note that the people did not struggle with one 
another as to who should be first served ; it seemed as if the 
rule was, the greater the need of the individual the greater 
the goodness and the patience displayed. ' Mothers, aunts, 
grandmothers, or neighbours,' said one diligent worker in the 
cause of relief, who had medical oversight of a Day Nursery, 
'will bring children to be fed, and, though in want themselves, 
never express, by word or sign, a desire to share in the help 
they know is meant only for young children. Big boys will 
bring little boys, and, though lank and hungry, and casting 
longing eyes on food, are only intent on seeing that their 
charges get their allotted ration. For six weeks past a little 
girl of ten or eleven has been bringing up two sickly children 
twice a day, nursing them with the tenderest care, and never 
asking bite or sup on her own account. She showed no signs 
of starvation until the last few days, when I noticed that she 
was beginning to go down, and I have asked the lady of the 
Nursery to bring her on the list of those to whom one good 



19 

meal a day may mean the salvation of life.' The gratitude, 
too, for the help rendered and the sympathy shown, was of a 
most marked character. 

As regards personal conduct, oreneral abstinence, and the Habits and 

,.,,., .r general conduct 

like, the Indian people of the lower classes are, if not all that very good. Few 

^ -^ ^ drunkards. 

could be desired, at least far better than those in other countries. 
They do not consume intoxicating drinks, save, perhaps, at 
the annual religious festival, and even then sparingly. In 
the * glad riot ' of the one holiday in the year their conduct is 
orderly, if tested by a Western standard, and their 
abstemiousness beyond all praise. Their substance, such as 
it is, is not wasted in riotous living. Nor do they encourage 
the sale of intoxicants. When Village Communities, having 
authority within their jurisdiction to impose fines and 
sentence to imprisonment, were revived in one portion of our 
rule in the East, and the villagers were summoned to make 
bye-laws for the guidance of affairs, they passed regulations 
which forbad the sale of liquor, or ganja, or opium, while 
they prohibited bullock-hackery racing on the high road. * 
Local Option has, with them, the effect which Sir Wilfrid 
Lawson and the United Kingdom Alliance believe it will 
have in Great Britain and Ireland, when Parliament has 
sanctioned its adoption. It is a sad fact, however, that the 

* Among the rules of these Village Communities are some which may be quoted. Their 
good sense will doubtless astonish some whose ideas of orientals are gathered from wrong 
notions which have been too long current t—e.fjr., "7. At the request, by petition, of the 
parents or guardians of twenty-five or more children for the establishment of a school, a 
school shall be established, which is to be built at the expense of all the villagers Avithin 
two miles of the proposed school : provided, always, that a schoolmaster is provided 
Avithout charge to the villagers [i.e.. at the cost of the Government]. The repair and 
upkeep of the school-house or room shall be provided for by the levy of a moderate fee from 
the pupils attending the school, or by labour given gratuitously by the parents or 
guardians of such children. Any parent who does not send his children to either the village 
school or any other place of education shall he considered as totally unfit for holding any 
offi.ce under Government, or of being a member of a Gansabhawa " (Village Council). 

"Boys from six to fifteen years old, and girls from six to twelve years old, shall be sent 
to school by their parents or guardians, except Avhen prevented by sickness or other 
material cause ; and the parents or guardians infringing this rule shall be subject to a fine 
not exceeding one rupee." 

"13. No cart-racing shall be permitted upon any public road, and no vehicle shall be 
driven thereon without a light at night." 

"14. Gambling and cock-fighting are prohibited. Every headman is requested to 
prosecute offenders against this rule before the Village Tribunal, as also aU disorderly 
persons and vagrants, also persons using obscene and abusive language." 

Another rule prohibits pawning articles " without notice previously given to the 
village headman."— (From " A Hume Kule Experiment in Ceylon," by Wm. Digby, 
Fortnightly Review, August, 1875.) 



20 

good sense of the Indian people, in regard to intoxicants, is 
being overborne by considerations of revenue, and that, for the 
sake of the money obtained from the issue of licenses, grog- 
shops are encouraged. The Rev. T. Evans, Baptist 
Missionary at Monghyr, Bengal, finds the state of affairs in 
that district becoming so bad, through the multiplication of 
licensed drinking-houses, that he has, twice within the past 
twelve months, addressed the Viceroy on the subject. 
Character of *A very happy- natured, contented race, as a whole, are 

^ ^^^^ ' our village husbandmen,' says Mr. Allan Hume, C.B., Secretary 
of the now defunct Revenue, Agricultural, and Commerce 
Department in India, ' and they have their little amusements 
and festivals, and when harvests are good, pretty much all that, 
with their simple habits, they need. The picture is not all 
black, or how could we, or anyone, hold the country ? But 
withal, their lives are very hard and toilsome, and through it, 
all too many are pressed with debt. Good crops ease the pain 
a little, and the village merry-making brings a temporary 
forgetfulness, but f/ie sore is always therey and, except in very 
good seasons , multitudes, for months in every year, cannot get 
sufficient food for themselves and their families. They are not 
starving, but they are hungry ; they get less than they want, 
and than they ought to have.' 

These are the people, forty millions of whom, says Dr. 
Hunter, speaking with exceptional knowledge and authority, 
go all their lives without enough food to eat. For their 
government and well-being English electors are responsi- 
ble. These are the people whose position ought to be improved, 
and may be improved if Englishmen and Englishwomen care 
to take a little trouble on their account. 

Hi^herciasses As for the higher classes, what is their character, what 

their disposition t Are they worthy of fellowship with 
Englishmen } Are they deserving of a little self-sacrificing 
effort on our part, that 'ample space and verge enough' shall 
be provided, in which they may grow to a proper mental, 
moral, and political standard.'' The reader shall judge. Sir 



21 

Richard Temple, whose experience of the Indian people has oif^thei^^gSd 
been very wide and varied, in his work on * India in 1880,' ^^*^*^^^' 
recently published, says ; * But with an English- 
man who lives and labours in the country, the wider his 
acquaintance with the natives, and the deeper his insight, the 
greater is his liking for them. He who has the best and 
longest acquaintance with the natives esteems them most. 
He who has the best data for an opinion regard- 
ing them, and the firmest ground on which to found his belief, 
will have the most hopeful faith in their mental and moral 

progress Many of their virtues are of a type or 

mould different from the Anglo-Saxon, but the domestic 
qualities shine with a quiet unobtrusive light, which deserves 
the admiring gaze of even the most civilized nations. . . . 
There is, in their disposition, a cheerful and courageous patience 
nurtured in the midst of national tribulations, a willingness to 
submit the unruly will to the dictates of a venerated law, and 
a reliance on an Almighty Power as the Refuge of the Weak, 
and the Helper of the Helpless, which are akin to the best forms 
of religion.' Herein, we know that Sir Richard testifieth truly. 
The Indian people, as a whole, are all he describes them to 
be, and more besides. 

In business life, to take another class in the social scale, -^^^^^^^ "* 
the average Indian is as much worthy of commendation, 
esteem, and trust, as is the agriculturist, with whom we have 
tarried. All the qualities which lead to success in mercantile 
affairs in this country are exhibited by the Indian merchant 
and trader. In the Madras Presidency, many Collectors 
testify specially to the energy of the Mahommedan traders, 
and with regard to the Hindu commercial castes, Dr. Cornish, 
the Compiler of the Census Tables, remarks: — *They have 
not the whole field to themselves ; for many Mahommedans 
and Hindus of other castes are now competing with them ; 
but they hold their own, as communities possessing capital, 
gifted with the spirit of enterprise, and free from the vice of 
personal extravagance, must always do.* * No merchants in 



22 



che world are more shrewd than those of India/ said Mr. J. B. 
Norton, in 1854, in a letter to Lord Sherbrooke, when (as 
Robert Lowe) he was Joint Secretary of the Board of Control 
of the East India Company. In the more pleasing aspects of 
character the business man is not wanting. The garden of an 
^° Indian merchant, which I visited, with its owner, shortly before 
I left India, was as much a matter of pride to him as a tulip 
bed was wont to be to a Dutch merchant, or as his greenhouses 
are to the average Englishman of to-day. When an Indian 
merchant has made money he does not hoard it. On the 
contrary, he freely parts with it ; he is anxious to disburse it 
in charity. The gentleman whose liking for flowers I have 
mentioned, during more than twelve months of the Madras 
famine fed sixteen hundred people daily in his own compound. 
When the distress was overpast he said to me, * I have been 
very prosperous in business, and am anxious to build a lying-in 
ward at the Monegar Choultry Hospital ; my aged mother, 
too, IS anxious I should do this before she dies.' The ward 
was built at considerable cost and, I believe, has since been 
adequately endowed. My friend is not exceptional in the 
exhibition of the good qualities I have mentioned. This would 
be more often seen by Anglo-Indians if, while they are in 
India, they would take the trouble to understand those with 
whom they come into contact, and be at some pains to call 
forth the best side of the character of those in whose land 
Englishmen are mere birds of passage, sojourners for a time. 
The mercantile and trading class is active and energetic in 
public affairs. Its members contest seats for the Municipal 
Councils, and are earnest and devoted in committee work, 
whether in the transaction of their own caste affairs, or in 
educational or philanthropic effort. There are all the essentials 
of a good citizen in each individual of the mercantile and 
trading section of the Indian population. 



Professional 
men. 



Ascending yet a step higher, we come to the professional 
men. These, as scholastic professors, barristers, lawyers, and 
Government servants, are in no degree behind their country- 



23 \ 

men in other ranks of life in exhibiting aspects of character 
of a praiseworthy kind. Perhaps, I cannot better describe this 
section of the Indian race than by a brief sketch of one Indian 
gentleman, whom I knew intimately, and esteemed most 
highly. He was a Tamil of high caste, and spent, I believe, 
four years as a student in the Presidency College, Madras. 
Partly through the example of, and contact with, a relative 
who had been to Europe more than once, my friend adopted 
a semi-European dress, and very well it became him too. He 
was, when in the college, a lad of good natural abilities, but 
apparently not susceptible to cram, or mere learning by rote ; 
at least, he did not take a degree at the University. When I 
first knew him he had left college a few years, and had been 
sworn as an Advocate of the Supreme Court. I knew nothing 
then about the rival systems of education in the various Presi- 
dencies, but I was induced to form a high opinion of the 
teaching in Madras from the good effects of it which I saw in 
my friend R. The result of this scholastic training had been 
to develop in him a keen desire to extend the horizon of his 
knowledge after he had left the College. He kept up his 
reading in the leading philosophic and scientific works of the 
day, and no man — Englishman or Indian — in the library to 
which he belonged was more choice in the selection of books, 
or read them more diligently or intelligently. This v/as seen 
when, after writing a work on ' The Philosophy of Law,' he 
appended a list of the authors he had consulted, after the 
manner Henry Buckle made fashionable : my Tamil friend's 
list was no contemptible one, even when mentioned in the 
same sentence as Buckle's. Politically he was as active as he 
was diligent intellectually. I had only known him a few 
weeks, when I had occasion to attend a town's meeting regard- 
ing sanitation, and found that he was a speaker to one of the 
Resolutions : right well and appropriately did he deal with 
the topic entrusted to him, speaking fluently from notes, and 
in good colloquial English, In larger political matters he was 
greatly interested, when the lead was given him ; for, as he 
often confessed, he did not feel confidence enough in himself 



24 

to initiate reforms, but he did feel that he could second 
anybody else's efforts very vigorously. And, as I happen to 
be aware, he did so with his purse as well as with his tongue 
and his pen ; all who know the people of India will agree that 
the test is a sure one in the East as in the West, that a man's 
real interest in a cause may be tried by his willingness to give 
pecuniary assistance to it. This test R. stood admirably. He 
was also * diligent in business,' taking up law-reporting in 
addition to his other duties ; he has published several volumes 
of reports, volumes which have received the encomiums of the 
Judges in the Court in which he practises. To the objection 
which might be urged that my friend was all that I described 
him to be intellectually, but, morally and spiritually, what is 
he ? my reply is ready. Though not a professing Christian, 
R. is as good a man as, or better than, a great many 
Christians so-called ! Religious topics were, for a time, 
avoided by both of us, but when men become intimate friends, 
the barrier of reserve on the chief of all subjects must soon be 
broken down. It was broken down so far as we were 
concerned. I found my friend was not a Christian, but just 
as certainly he was not an Atheist. He believed in God, 
holding that the Deity whom Christians adored and the Deity 
on which the super-structure of Hinduism has been reared 
were in essence the same. He once quoted against me a 
passage in the Epistle to the Romans, I think, where the 
writer says that God has in every land those who trust in, and 
fear. Him, and who, presumably, will be saved. The inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures, and the incarnation of Jesus Christ, 
were things he could not bring himself to believe in, whilst also 
he could not confess to having experienced that deep and 
lasting yearning after a greater than one's self (which most 
men who pass through deep waters experience), in whose 
wisdom confidence might be reposed. Still, he admitted that 
might come in time. He was not self-conscious or conceited, 
and he possessed what are, in Christian parlance, called ' the 
graces of the Spirit,' for he was sober, not given to frivolous 
or malicious conversation, ready to think the best of every- 



25 

body, and yet, withal, courageous in the maintenance of his 
convictions, proof of the latter quality being given on many 
occasions when the necessity for a stone-wall stand arose. 

That man, my friend R., is the product of English ^g^'^^^^iyc^fl; 
education in India ; I think the product is one of which we generally good, 
have no reason to be ashamed. The gentleman whose 
character I have faintly outlined is now the nominated 
representative of his race in a Legislative Council. But for 
the fear that I should weary the readers of this Letter, I 
should like, from the seven volumes of Legislative Council 
Debates which are by my side as I write, to give many 
illustrations of the capacity and ability of the educated 
oriental for counsel and debate. Lord Northbrook,* some- 
time Viceroy of India, now First Lord of the Admiralty, ^^^^^^ '^"J^g^J; 
however, shall supply a few facts. His lordship, stating "^^^y- 
that, in his position as Viceroy, he only came into contact 
with the educated natives, gave his opinion respecting them. 
Among them was the late Rajah Romanath Tagore, a 
member of the Legislative Council of the Viceroy, who often 
gave the Government most valuable assistance ; and the late 
Dwarkanath Mitra, who was for six years a Judge of the 
High Court of Calcutta. ' We, in England,' said Lord 
Northbrook, * sometimes forget that the manner in which 
Indian questions are treated in Parliament and in the Press 
here is thoroughly understood by the educated natives of 
India. This attention to English politics is not confined to 
the educated natives of British territories. At the Native 
Courts the articles of our English newspapers are habitually 
translated and read. Dr. Bellew's travels and Sir Henry 
Rawlinson's essays were studied at the Court of the Amir of 
Kabul. Moreover, there are newspapers published in India — 
notably, the Hindoo Patriot of Calcutta — written in English, 
exclusively by natives, which hold their own well with the 
Anglo-Indian journals.' Englishmen can judge for them- 
selves whether, with men of the kind above described, 

* Speech delivered in the Town Hall, Birmingham, in 1879. 



26 

increasing in numbers year by year, we shall not have to 
re-cast our relations with India. Scope must be found for 
their trained energies and for their legitimate ambition, or 
they will, in a manner that may be unpleasant to us, find 
scope for themselves. 

india,n states- There now remains one other class of Indians whom I 



men. 



wish specially to mention. A knowledge of them, and an 
acquaintance with their work, cannot fail to deepen the 
respect which the English people should cherish for their 
fellow-subjects in India. I refer to the statesmen who, in 
peculiar positions, and with many restraints, have given 
evidence of the possession of wonderful faculties and 
marvellous ability. Sir Salar Jung has regenerated the 
Nizam's Dominions ; Sir Madhava Rao has changed decay 
and chaos in Travancore to prosperity and order, and in 
Baroda has done equally good work, amid difficulties that 
were stupendous ; Sir Dinkur Rao ; Mr. Raghunath Rao, 
Minister to the Maharajah Holkar ; and many others who 
might be named, have displayed the administrative ability of 
the Indian in no common degree. The capacity of this 
group of statesmen, taken singly, may be gauged by a brief 
recital of what Sir Salar Jung has done in the Deccan — first, 
for the country whose affairs he has administered in time of 
plenty and in time of famine ; and, second, in the prudence 
and patience he has shown in the face of difficulties 
innumerable, and of insults wellnigh unbearable. Sir Salar 
Jung's career has been that of a great Reformer, great in the 
sense in which Englishmen are apt to regard the work of 
Mr. Gladstone during the late session of Parliament (1881) as 
great, viz., in masterly and masterful dealing with compli- 
cated land questions which strike at the root of the well-being 
of Society. 
Sir Salar Jung Thls is not the olacc in which to — nor is it necessary for 

as a Land Re- ^ 

former. ^^q purposcs of this Letter that I should — take a survey 

of all Sir Salar Jung's good work as a Reformer. It will 
suffice if I show what he has done in relation to Land 



27 

Reform, chiefly because that is the great rock ahead in 
Indian administration. That is the feature respecting which, 
from the time of Lord Cornwallis's gigantic blunder in 
creating landlords (in the English sense of the term) and in 
making a permanent settlement, we, as rulers, have been most 
helpless and most unsuccessful ; and also, because, from the 
intricacies of the subject, from the local knowledge required, 
certitude and satisfaction on this important matter will only 
be obtained by, and through, Indian statesmen. Sir Salar 
Jung assumed charge of the government of his Highness the 
Nizam's Dominions in 1853. As soon as he had made 
himself master of the facts, he took in hand the improvement 
of the land revenue. He found abuses in plenty existing, ing abolished. 
Revenue farmers stood between the Governm^ent and the 
peasantry, and became extortioners of the worst class. They 
invented pretexts for levying taxes which were illegal, and 
ground down the peasantry almost to powder. The Prime 
Minister of the Nizam grappled with this evil and conquered 
it. A measure of his far-sightedness and courage may be 
gathered when I state that, twenty years after revenue 
farming had been abolished in the Native State he adminis- 
tered, that infamous system flourished in the colony of Ceylon, 
which is ruled from Downing-street, and for ivhose righteous 
government the English people are directly responsible. 
Fortunately, a change for the better in some slight degree has 
been brought about in Ceylon by the adoption of such 
means as this Letter is intended to call forth., viz., constitu- 
tional agitation through the British Parliament. 

The difficulties in the way of Sir Salar Jung were 
stupendous, but he overcame them. Probably, dry details 
respecting the Sarbastedari system, the Zemindari system, or 
the Ryotwari principle, are unnecessary. It may suffice if I 
state that, after the most careful investigation, the Minister 
decided not to follow Lord Cornwallis's bad example, and 
create a new class of landlords, though the advantage to an ^^g^^ jn ti^^ 
Administration of such a class was not overlooked. The ontenanS"^^"^ 
decision which Sir Salar came to was in favour of direct 



28 

communication between the Government and the tenants, the 
latter obtaining rights in the soil they cultivated, rig'nts at the 
mention of which many Members of the British House of 
Commons would stand aghast, and the contemplation of which 
would drive Mr. Henry Chaplin to frenzy. In the direction 
towards which land legislation in Ireland is tending. Sir Salar 
Jung laboured, with the result that the prosperity of the 
inhabitants of the Deccan is vastly increased, the State 
revenues are enormously larger, exactions and impositions are 
reduced to a minimum, and ^ degree of general contentment 
marks his Highness's Dominions, which is not to be found in 
the larger portion of the British-ruled territory by which 
those Dominions are surrounded. There is no honour in the 
keeping of the British Crown too great for the man who 
performed this task — (if the next Garter that falls vacant were 
sent to Hyderabad, a right step would be taken) ; but, 
instead of receiving honour, because Sir Salar Jung, through 
too-great devotion to his country, is out of favour with the 
Calcutta Foreign Office, he has been subjected to contumely 
and insult of a petty and discreditable kind. The story of 
his treatment, however, cannot find a place here. 

Abolition of Sir Salar Jung's third reform in connection with the land 
payment in kind ^^g the aboHtion of paymcnt-in-kiud. This is a system 
vicious in many ways, and objectionable both to the State 
and to the cultivator. Exact knowledge by the State of the 
area of the land or of the producibility of the soil is not, 
under payment-in-kind, a pre-requisite, and is not possessed : 
all that the State cares about is the quantity of grain 
produced, of which it claims its portion. Sir Salar Jung's 
description of the evils of the old mode, contained in a State 
paper which he furnished to the Famine Commissioners in 
1879, is complete in showing the necessity for doing away 
with that system. The adaptability of native officials to 
administrative work of a high order was proved by the 
thorough manner in which a change so great as this and 
so difficult was simultaneously and peacefully introduced 



29 

throughout the territory affected. Well-considered rules and 
energetic effort speedily overcame the obstacles which, at 
first sight, appeared insurmountable. 

These facts, described in barest form, from a wealth of 
material available, will serve to show the capacity of the 
Indian mind, and indicate the excellent material which is 
ready for English thoughtfulness to take in hand, and shape 
for higher and better things than the mere * hewing of wood 
and drawing of water ' in which all but a very small portion 
of that material is now employed. A wider field, larger op- 
portunities, are imperatively needed for the educated and able 
men of India. 




II.— THE COUNTRY AS IT IS. 



Effect upon a Sb f^m N an ideal world the holding of one country in 

conquered peo- «^.>.>« i .«sa8 o ^ 




pie of being held ^^ W^ subjectlon bv another would not be possible. 

m subjection. ^^ kJt^ 

Nor, when that period comes, *by good men 
prayed for long,' when the average of goodness and 
intelligence the world over becomes higher, will such over- 
rule and subjection continue. Let the intentions of 
conquerors be never so humane, the necessities of the position 
which they occupy render it inevitable that — often without 
knowing it, more often without meaning it — they shall be 
guilty of oppression, they shall exhibit the vices of arrogance 
and greed. Everything will be made to give way to the 
necessities, or supposed necessities, of the superior race, let 
the cost be what it may. On the other hand, the conquered 
people, 'inferiority' being 'the badge of all their tribe,' will 
display the vice of insincerity and, maybe, of prevarication, 
will become mere echoes of the opinions, or fancied opinions, 
of the over-ruling race, and, for want of scope and influence, 
be unable to find full play for their abilities, or employment 
for their experience. The most melancholy feature of the 
whole matter is that, by so acting, they rivet the chains of 
subjection more firmly upon themselves. ' 'Tis true, 'tis pity ; 
pity 'tis, 'tis true.' Such is the state of things we have 
brought about in India. If, nevertheless, it is possible for one 
to give such a favourable account of the Indian people as 
appears in the foregoing pages, evidence is furnished of the 
Self-praise of great possibilities of the race, if placed under more favourable 

Tndian admini- . . ttt • i • i /. 

stration. circumstanccs. We praise ourselves in season, and out of 

season, for what we have done in India, and for the way in 
which we have done it ; we depreciate our Indian fellow- 
subjects in equal ratio. But, as we are judging our own work, 
and as our estimate of the Indians is the estimate of an 



3r 

over-lording class, our praise of ourselves and our depreciation 
of others must be accepted with caution. We have been in 
India many years. We have failed to efovern the country as Failure to 

^ ^ ^ •' properly govern 

it ought to be governed, not so much from want of good i^^^ii^- 
intentions as from deficiency of knowledge, and, what is far 
worse, we are rendering it impossible for the people ever to 
rule themselves. What we, because of our shallow informa- 
tion, have not succeeded in doing ourselves, we will not admit 
to be possible of accomplishment by those who possess the 
knowledge and experience which we lack. It may be denied 
that our rule in India has been a practical failure. To such 
deniers there is a three-fold answer. That answer is wholly 
made up of facts furnished by those who are responsible for 
what is described. It cannot truthfully be asserted that our 
rule has been a success, when, 

I. — Forty millions of people are in a chronic state of Forty mimons 

-^ ^ -^ -> starving. 

starvation. 

II. — Durinsc the past twenty years over nine millions of ^^}^^ muiions 

o -t -^ -^ -^ died from want 

people have died from want of food. of food. 

III. — In twenty years, i.e., during the period betweeji 1858 of^^®u{i^"™t?® 
and 1879, I'^'i'dia has been under the dii'-ect rule of Great Britain, 
we have trebled the public debt, raising it front between fifty and 
sixty millions to between one hundred and forty and 07ie hu7idred 
and fifty milliojis. 

So far as the mass of the inhabitants are concerned, wm-se'ttian^^ 
all this time — as I have already shown, and shall show in 0? cILmity!"^^ 
fresh detail — life has been made increasingly hard to them : 
their struggle for existence has become fiercer, their life far less 
worth living. It has happened that precisely in accord with 
the prevalence of the more complete English mode of rule 
(save and except, under Lord Northbrook, in Behar, in 1874) 
in time of calamity, the suffering of the people has been 
greatest : where native administration has had sway the con- 
ditions have been easier and better for the sufferers. This „ ,. „ , . 

Native aamm- 

was strikingly manifested during the famine of i^yG-i^jy. j^Se'^'times. 
Mysore and the Nizam's Dominions are both Naiive States. 
The first-named State, at that time, was under the special con- 



32 



Comparison 
favourable to 
native admini> 
stration. 



Indian 
perience 



not 



sufficiently 
availed oU 



trol of the Government of India, and was administered by a 
strong force of English officials. To say nothing of the 
money-loss involved in crop-failure, the destruction in other 
respects was frightful ; one fourth of the population was swept 
away. In the latter State, where an able Indian statesman 
holds the reins of power, the distress was grappled with in a 
masterly manner in the earlier stages of the calamity, and the 
death-rate was only slightly above the average. The Nizam's 
Dominions had practically recovered from the famine within 
a year or two of the height of the distress. It will take Mysore 
a generation, or may be a century, to completely recover itself. 
Comparison between Sir Salar Jung's districts, and those in the 
Madras and Bombay Presidencies, again under British control, 
exhibits the same features as would a comparison between the 
two Native States. In the Nizam's Dominions you have the 
English system of administration thoroughly grasped by an 
Indian statesman, modified so much as might be necessary to 
meet existing circumstances, and carried out by Indian agency. 
The result is far superior to what can be accomplished where 
English ideas are carried out by English officials, who are aliens 
and foreigners — who do not thoroughly understand either 
country or people, and, what is worse, in too many instances, 
do not care to try to understand them. Herein lies the radi- 
cal defect of our present arrangements in India, and until a 
change is made, neither will India be so well-ruled as it ought 
to be, nor will justice be done to the country, and its in- 
habitants. 

India is in a worse condition than it would have been had 
our countrymen relied less upon their own theories, and trusted 
more to the experience stored in native minds, which 
experience was available to them, had they cared to seek it. 
The fact need hardly be stated — it is so patent — that Indians, 
while not unmindful of certain benefits which have accrued to 
their country from British supremacy (indeed, the leaders of 
Indian opinion are always ready to pay the sincerest homage to 
such good as has been accomplished), would be reluctant to 
admit that our rule, on the whole, has been all that could be 



Justice Cun- 
ingham' 
missions. 



33 

desired, or has made for the lasting good of the land. But, 
because their attitude towards us must be hostile, it does not 
at all follow that their opinions are valueless. On the con- 
trary. And, it is noteworthy, the worst the Indians say about 
their country, and its decadence in some respects, is more than 
borne out by independent observers. For instance, the memo- 
randum prepared and published by Mr. J. Caird, C.B., after his 
visit to India in connection with the Famine Commission is 
a serious indictment of the manner m which the country is ad- 
ministered. Special apologists, such as Mr. Justice Cunning- 
ham, of the High Court of Justice, Calcutta, and others, against 
their will and in spite of their denials, are compelled to support 
the views of outside observers. Mr. Cunninp;ham has recently ningham's ad- 
produced a work, ' British India and its Rulers.' Like Sir 
Richard Temple's 'India in 1880,' it is intended as a glorifica- 
tion of our rule. Yet the Judge is compelled to state that the 
old native manufactures have died out, or have been super- 
seded by European fabrics. He also admits that famines have 
occurred with great regularity, and with terrible effect. Since 
the beginning of this century there have been eleven great 
famines, which have affected large provinces. Some part of 
India suffers from famine two years in every nine ; a famine of 
some sort or other may be expected every eleven or twelve 
years ; and a great famine — such as that which devastated 
Madras in id>'j6-id>'j'/y or Bengal in 1774 — may come twice in 
a century. * 

The Prime Minister of the Maharajah Holkar, in a Man opinion 

•' ' on increase of 

Memorandum on Famines in India, does not hesitate to famines, 
assert that in his opinion, and in the opinion of those who, 
like him, have special and full knowledge, great decadence 
has accompanied our administration. ' In the fourteenth cen- 
tury,' says Mr. Raghunath Rao, ' there was only one famine in 
India. In the fifteenth century it was the same. In the 
seventeenth century there were two famines. In the 

■* The Saturday Review is constrained to say of Mr. Justice Cunningham's optimism, 
" With all these averages and uncertainties, it seems idle to dilate on tne happiness " of i 

Indian proprietorship. 



34 

eighteenth there were eight famines. In seventy-seven years 
of the nineteenth centuiy, there were more than twelve 
famines ; I am told there have been eighteen famines.' 
There may be unintentional exaggeration here, as local 
severe scarcities, in the present century, are probably counted 
as famines ; in past centuries they would, most likely, have 
passed away unrecorded. The very able and exhaustive 
report on the Famine in the Nizam's Dominions, prepared by 
Maulvi Mahdi AH, Revenue Secretary at Hyderabad, however, 
gives evidence which goes entirely to support the position 
taken by the Maharajah Holkar's Minister. 

Taxation. As regards taxation, Dr. Hunter, speaking from the 

superficial view which it is scarcely pardonable in one with 
so much information at his command, to take, asserts that the 
taxation of to-day is very light and easily borne. Those who 
carry the burden speak of it in a different manner. Absolute 
contradiction of Dr. Hunter's statement is to be found in the 
fact that the Government of India are at their wits' end to im- 
onerous ra- P^^^ ^^ additional tax, and in the further fact that special 
ture of Taxation legislative measures have been passed again and again in 
relief of the taxpayers.* The continual grinding condition of 



* An Indian newspaper which, for its readiness to do for the Government of India what 
Balaam, the prophet, would not do for King Balak, viz., prophesy smooth things, simply 
because smooth prophecies are wanted, has become a bye-word in India — I mean the Pioneer 
— writing in 1877 of agrarian discontent in Bombay, was compelled to say, "Worried by the 
revenue survey for heavily-enhanced public payments, enslaved by his private creditor, 
dragged into Court only to have imposed upon him the intolerable burden of fresh decrees, 
without even the resource of flight, which was open to his fore-fathers before the kindred 
scourge of Holkar, the Deccan ryot accepted, for the third of a century, with characteristic 
patience and silence, the yoke of British mis-government. For thirty years, as we now learn 
from the papers published, he had been at once the scandal and anxiety of his masters. 
Report upon report had been written upon him ; shelf upon shelf in the public offices 
groaned under the story of his wrongs. If any one doubts the naked accuracy of these 
words, let him dip into the pages of Appendix A (papers on the indebtedness of the 
agricultural classes in Bombay). A more damning indictment was never recorded against a 
civilised Government. From 1844 to 1874, successive Administrations have been appealed to, 
have been warned, or have been urged. Each, in its turn, has replied — as the present will 
doubtless answer to the late Committee's importunities — with a suave sigh of non possumus. 
The hospitalities of Dapoore or Ganeshkhind (the palaces of the Bombay Governor) have for 
thirty years been lavished in graceful and generous profusion ; while the ryot, who paid for 
them, "laid hard by in enforced and ruinous idleness, a debtor in the Poona gaol ; or ate at 
their gates, in the field of which the fruits had once been his own, the bitter bread of 
slavery." Commenting upon this passage, Mr. C. H. O Donnell, B.C.S., in his pamphlet, 
" The Ruin of an Indian Province," says : — " It is true that this seems the language of 
exaggeration ; yet, after making every allowance for the influence of a just indignation, it is 
impossible to assert that the history of this century presents many more fearful pictures of 
maladministration by a European nation than does this paragTaph from one of the most 
Conservative journals in the Empire." "So," continues the newspaper, "the survey officers 
Xof the land revenue) came and went, adding each his thousands and tens of thousands to the 



35 

poverty suffered by the ryot, and his utter helplessness in the 
hands of the money-lender, also contradict the optimistic 
remarks of officials. Let us see, however, what representative 
native opinion says on this point. Mr. Raghunath Rao 
writes :— ' In the good old days one-sixth of the net produce potte?'®''* ™' 
was the share of the Sovereign/ The Ayeen Akbarry 
remarks : — ' In former times the monarchs of Hindoostan 
exacted the sixth of the produce of the lands ; in the Turkish 
Empire the husbandman paid the fifth, in Taran the sixth, 
and in Iran, the tenth.' Noorshurvan, King of Persia, fixed it 
at a third. Akbar settled his land-tax at one-third of the 
medium produce. His unworthy successors raised it to one- 
half. Now, in practice, it is considerably higher than ojie-half. 
About the late famine in the Bombay Presidency, the 
opinion of the natives may be learnt from the following:— Native opinion 
'While the harvests were not good, the assessment on land f^„,i^e?™^^^ 
was heavily enhanced. The peasantry were thus impoverished 
in two ways. In the first place, the out-turn of their crops 
was not favourable, and in the second, they were called upon 
to pay an enhanced land revenue demand. The famine of 
1876 found the agricultural classes in this condition, and they 



public assessments. Marwaris (money-lenders) swarmed up, in ever-increasing flights, from 
the far north-west, and settled down on the devoted acres. Honourable Justices visited 
India, to carry off after a while to their homes, also, some trifle from the ryot's hands, 
leaving him in exchange their precedents and their rulings ; leaving also, in a thousand 
desolate hornesteads, a monument, to those who sought it, of the wisdom of the system 
over which (always, of coarse, at the ryot's expeuse) it had been their pleasure to preside. 
Decrees of the Courts flew like arrow-flights into the thickest of the population, striking 
down the tallest and the most notable. Stupidity, blindness, indifference, greed — inability, 
in a word, in all its thousand forms -settled down, like the fabled harpies, on the ryot's bread, 
and bore off ivith them all that he subsisted upon. Then, at last, in spite of his marvellous 
forbearance, Jacques Bonhomme could stand it no longer. Long-suffering in every land, 
the patience in India of the misera contribuens plebs is especially proverbial. Conversely, 
in IiKlia of all other countries, are agi'icultural movements dangerous." Mr. O'Donnell, in 
comment, says, " It may well be wonderingly asked. Can it be possible that the highly- 
civilised Government of England in the nineteenth century can have reduced a great Indian 
province to that worst extremity of peasant misery which has made the great French social 
war of the fourteenth centu-y a bye-word for criminal maladministration? Truly and 
piteously did Sir George Wingate, a distinguished Bombay ofl&cer, exclaim : ' What must 
be the state of things which can compel cultivators, proverbially patient and long-suffering, 
accustomed to more or less of ill-usage and injustice at all times, to redress their wrongs by 
murder, and in defiance of an ignominious death to themselves ? How must their sense of 
justice have been violated ? How must they have been bereft of all hope of redress from law 
or Government before their patient and peaceful natures could be roused to the point of 
desperation required for such a deed ? ' " " It is difficult," adds the Pioneer, " to read these 
sentences without something like a curse on the system of laisser alter which drove the 
Kumbi from his fields to his only effective form of argument ; without something like fiery 
anger at the Government which has replied, once and for all. to his pleading, by thrusting 
him into a gaol." 



1 



36 



could ill stand its pressure. The inevitable consequence has 
been widespread distress and considerable loss of human 
life.' 
Unjust deal- In a foot-notc, I have given a citation from Mr. 

mgswi y s. Q'j^Qj^j^gll'g pamphlet of the wrong done to Bombay ryots. 
I may take over here some evidence which he supplies of the 
condition of the people in a Bengal province, viz., that of 
Behar, in which the famine of 1874 occurred. The 
Englishman newspaper, the oldest and most respected daily 
paper in Calcutta, records facts highly discreditable in regard 
Running away to Behar. 'The absconding^ of ryots,' it writes, 'has become 

from British . i- i , , 

rule. SO notorious that the police have been employed to register 

their flight. During the year 1874-1875, in spite of splendid 
harvests, over five thousand families have sought refuge from 
English injustice in the jungles of the Nepaulese Terai. It is 
calculated that these five thousand households, thus 
abandoned, represent a total number of emigrants not less 
than twenty thousand.' These statements, says Mr. 
O'Donnell, far from being contradicted, were confirmed 
beyond question in every particular. A judicial officer of tried 
ability was deputed to inquire into the disorder, assisted by 
the chief magistrate of the Durbhunga district. ' Quite 
apart,' he wrote, * from the failure of crop, in travelling there ' 

Depopulation. the Durbhunga property — ' one had a feeling sometimes of 

desolateness, from the fewness of the people to be met on the 
road, or to be seen on the maidans (plains). The villages 
were few. We were so much struck with the scantiness of 
population that, in the absence of people enough to ask about 
it, we began speculating to ourselves as to the cause why old 
fields should have been abandoned, why good wastes should 

not have been reclaimed I have further to submit 

that the anxiety among the population of these estates, as I 
understood their feelings, was about impending ruin, rather 
than impending starvation. It is true, they talked of famine 
and death ; but this was, for the most part, but a prelude to 
Invariable tale the invariable tale of oppression and rack-renting. I watched 
oppression. ^^^^ Carefully— their expression, their demeanour, the 



37 

subjects up to which they led the conversation — and the 
above was the conclusion I came to.' Mr. O'Donnell, in his 
pamphlet, proceeds to give, from official records, facts which 
prove that the illegal exactions, rack-renting, and other mis- 
doings, for which the authorities were responsible, did more 
to bring about and accentuate the sufferings caused by the 
famine of 1874 than all the mischances of chmate, drought, 
or inundation. 

The soil of the country, too, is proving less productive 
year by year, thereby adding to the aggravations of the ductlve.^^^ ^^°' 
situation. While the present state of things continues, while 
we deny to the people that share in their own government 
which would stimulate them to earnestness of effort, and to 
fertility of resource — because their interest in the prosperity 
of their own country, brought about by themselves, would be 
greater — little change can be hoped for. There is nothing, 
save the blighting influence of the stranger, to prevent the ^ Blighting m. 
Indian soil from becoming very fertile. Japan and China stranger. 
are equally ancient in the scale of nations with India. The 
Japanese and the Chinese maintain the fertility of their soil. Japanese and 
The influences which are potent with them would be likewise ti^|ood.^*^^^ 
potent with the people of India if only they were assisted to 
help themselves, put in the way of self-advancement, and 
then largely left to their own devices. 

If, under our care, Indian agriculture has proved increas- ^ Jn^^^^n ^nu- 
ingly less productive, that is not the only ill done to India ^y British, 
which can be laid to our charge. We have killed the manu- 
factures of the country : even Mr. Justice Cunningham admits 
this. At one time the looms of India must have given much 
occupation to weavers. The needs of two hundred millions of 
people, at least, were met therefrom. Now, save and except 
in Madras, Bombay, and one or two other towns, where cotton- 
mills have been established by Indian mercantile energy, the 
occupation of weaving has become comparatively scarce, and 
almost worthless. I will not weary the reader with statistics 
on the point : they are at hand for the curious who may desire 



38 

them. As an example of the harm which has been wrought, 
Mr. Mahdi Ali's answer to a question put to him by the Famine 
Commission in 1878 will suffice. ' In the Nizam's Dominions/ 
he said, ' the manufacturing classes have broken down in the 
tiS^Deccanf^"^ Same Way as they have done in other parts of India. The 
famous brocades of Aurungabad, the silk stuffs turned out by 
the looms at Paitan, the filigree work of Bidar, the carpets of 
Warrangal, and the cotton stuffs of Nander, all these manu- 
factures are on the wane, and these industries are fast dying 
out of the country.' It is w^e of the English race who have 
killed these industries. Upon us lies the serious responsibility 
of repairing the mischief we have done, and — let the efforts 
needed be never so toilsome — to take care that we leave, or — if 
some object to the expression of such a contingency— that we 
are careful to govern India better than we found it governed. 

Finances. It is unnecessary that much should be said in this Letter 

respecting the Finances of India. No one at all acquainted 
with public affairs can be unaware of the grave position of the 
financial administration of the Empire. A few general remarks, 
however, may not be without value. Taking the figures of the 
past forty years, it appears that only in eleven years has 
the income sufficed to meet the expenditure and leave a 

Frequent and surplus ; in twcnty-nine years there have been deficits. For 

heavy deficits. r i 111 r • 1 

one year oi solvency there have been two oi msolvency. 
Sometimes, as in i860, the deficit for the year has reached 
nearly fifteen millions, or as in 1861, over twelve millions, 
while the surplus at its highest {1866) has been only two-and- 
three-quarters of a million. The net deficit on the whole 
period under review was ^^76, 908,484. Since 1840 the public 
of^ubf Tbt^ ^^^^ ^^^ more than quadrupled : the interest paid upon it 
since 1840, viz., ;^ 148,323,967, is ;^2,488,527 more than the 
amount of the debt in 1879 — the sum total then being 
i^i45, 835,440. Other totals of importance show that, in the 
thirty-eight years under review, ^^687,27 5,726 were derived as 
taxation from Land, and ^^227,097,608 from the tax on 
Opium. 



39 



stoppage pos- 
sible without 



The Opium traffic, the continuance of which is a sore burden ^p^^^ ^^affio. 
upon the conscience of Great Britain, in 1840 yielded only- 
three-quarters of a million. The year after it doubled in 
value. Now it amounts to nearly ten millions : the net 
receipts to the Treasury are between six and seven millions ; 
the remainder is swallowed up in establishments and the 
like. After our war with China, to compel that country to 
take Indian Opium, the traffic greatly increased. The reader 
will see that the crime which we have committed — for, in the 
Court of Righteousness, if not in the Law Courts of the 
Empire, we are held to have done iniquitously — is entirely 
committed within the memory of living men, and has — ignor- 
antly or otherwise— been fostered by the existing generation 
of Englishmen. A striking act of political justice would be 
performed if the generation which witnessed the portentous 
up-growth of the traffic, which allowed the growth to go on 
unchecked, were to prove the generation which got rid of it 
altogether. Stoppage of the traffic is possible, without 
causing bankruptcy. A separate pamphlet, however, would i>ankruptcy. 
be needed to show this ; that pamphlet must await the course 
of events. 

In this connection an" incident must not be over- cwnese oppo- 
looked which gives present and very pressing importance to the 
opium question. Chinese diplomacy is of an unusually patient 
and utterly tireless kind. Once let the ruling mind of China 
beset upon the accomplishment of an object, and, 'without 
haste, without rest,' that object will be accomplished. The 
recent conflict with Russia in connection with the Kuldja 
Treaty affi^rds proof that the Chinese diplomatic grip is like 
the tooth-hold of an English bull-dog in battle : once fixed, then 
death or victory. The remarkable letter from his Excellency 
Li Hung Chang, to the Rev. F. Storrs Turner, Secretary of the 
Anti-Opium Society, followed up as it has been by the des- 
patch of an unaccredited Envoy to Calcutta, to make enquiries 
in India, shows that China has determined to be rid of the 
Indian Opium traffic. At their own convenience, the Chinese 
authorities will press the matter for settlement, in a manner 



40 

unpleasant for India. Whether a Radical or Tory Govern- 
ment were in power in Great Britain when that time arrived, it 
is certain that the awakened conscience of the nation would 
not permit another war of iniquity with the Celestials for the 
maintenance of a portion of the Indian revenue. Whether we 
like it or not, we shall one day be compelled to readjust our 
Indian finances so as to make both sides of the account balance 
without the contribution now forced from the Chinese. It is 
obvious that enlightened statesmanship should be directed 
towards bringing about the inevitable change at a time which 
would be convenient to Great Britain, and to India, and not 
be forced to take this action whenever it might suit China 
to make the demand. 

Salt taxation. ^^ taxes upon Salt— from 1840 to 1879— ;^ 15 7, 120,787 

were contributed by the Indian people. On the subject of the 
salt tax, and its collection, I may repeat a portion of a con- 
versation I had, while residing in India, with an English Civil 
Servant of the Madras Presidency. 'You refer to the Salt 
Tax,' said this official. ' Well, for my part, I consider the law 
with reference to it is most iniquitous. I have recently been 

magistrate in the taluk of , and almost every day had to try 

a number of frauds on the salt revenue, as they are termed. It 
distressed me exceedingly to pass sentences upon the poor 
wretches brought before me, but my duty was to administer 
the law, and I took care to do it as humanely as possible. 
Here is an instance of the way in which the law works. A case 
came before me in which a labourer had shifted his place of 
residence, and had made himself a new mud hut. When he 
came to occupy his hut, he found the earth-floor strongly 
impregnated with saline particles ; he scraped up some of the 
dirt, separated the parts as well as he could, and put the " salt " 
he had collected outside to dry. This was observed by a revenue 
collector; the man was proceeded against, was imprisoned, 
and was condemned to receive some lashes, but the last part 

Mr. Caird on >-. i • i • -nt r 

onerous Salt of the Sentence was remitted.' Mr. Caird, m his * Notes of 

duties. 

an Indian Journey,' mentions a visit he made to a place in 



41 

Bengal, where he asked the price of salt, and found the tax 
upon it amounted to nine-tenths of the price. That is, in 
buying five-pennyworth of salt, one half-penny represents the 
value of the condiment, and fourpence-halfpenny the tax upon 
it. 

The onerous character of the taxation we have imposed onerous char- 
upon India may be judged, if we note the increase of the one tfonf ° ^^^ 
item of revenue derivable from salt. The period we have 
under review is that already mentioned, viz., from 1840 to 1879, 
both years inclusive. During that time the population, allow- 
ing for checks by famine and by other calamities — (in one 
night, in the delta of the Megra river in Bengal, nearly one 
hundred thousand people were drowned by a cyclonic wave 
sweeping across the low level country) — the increase cannot have 
been more than, at the outside, twenty per cent. As a matter 
of fact, it has been less, but we will accept that estimate. While, 
however, the increase of population has been only twenty per 
cent, or less, t/ie increase ifi the receipts of the taxatio7t on salt Enormous in- 
has been nearly three hundred per cent. That is, salt is now several Jeveaue!" ^^* 
times dearer, owing entirely to higher taxation, than it was in 
1840! Yet Englishmen are told, by official apologists, that 
we have made life easier and better for our Indian fellow-sub- 
jects, that all the advantages of our rule — and they, it is said, 
are legion — have been for the people. Rather, it seems that 
while the native rulers whipped the people with whips we have 
scourged them with scorpions. About eight years ago, Mr. J. 
H. Keene, of the Bengal Civil Service, Judge at Agra, wrote a 
poem which appeared in all the Indian papers. In that 
poem, apostrophizing English supremacy, Mr. Keene asked, — 

' What has your civilization done for the people here ? 
Has it made them prosper ?— or poorer ?— think you, year by year ? 
Skulking in rotten cabins, like foul and famished ghosts ; 
While you live at Simla concocting statistics and well-paid posts ; 
Standing like trees between the soil and the beams of God, 
Furnishing each clod-hopper with one supporting clod ? 
This is not your ideal ? Well, and what is it then ? 

Flatulent Bengal students aping the manners of men ? ^ 

People that hate you like poison, praising you up to the skiea, 
Greeks of the lower Empire building a throne on lies ? ' 



42 

Crushing When, side by side with the increased cost of salt, an 

weight of ad* "^ ' 

ministration, absolute necessity of healthy life, we put the greater cost of 
food-grains of all kinds (see ante, p. 13), some idea may be 
formed of the terribly crushing weight of English administration 
upon the inhabitants of India. It would be tedious here to 
follow out the several acts of our statesmen which have led to 
so discreditable an issue. A glance at the revenue returns 
confirms the opinion formed on the spot in India, as to the 
unsatisfactory nature of our rule. After seeing with one's own 
eyes what is to be seen, the conclusion cannot be avoided that 
nearly the whole course of present trouble arises from the fearful 
and unnecessary expense of our way of doing things in a country 
which we won by craft and by the sword, and which we are 
only able to keep by deeds of oppression and by resources 
wrung from the vitals of the people. It is time to put an end 
to this state of things, or — if things have progressed so far 
that an end is not possible, except at the cost of more effort 
than even a resolute people like the British would be prepared 
to undertake — that there was such an immediate grappling with 
the subject as shall, at least, procure amelioration. Now that 
India is virtually ruled by the House of Commons, every 
Englishman is guilty of serious dereliction of duty who does 
not strive, so far as in him lies, first, to understand the country 
and the people, and, then, steadily and unweariedly, to use 
every means in his power to bring relief to the suffering and 
oppressed. 





III._WHAT ENGLISHMEN CAN DO FOR INDIA. 

FEEL satisfied no really earnest Liberal, whose ^ sentiments of 

•^ ^ ' Liberals regard- 

reason for existence as a Liberal is that he may ^^s i^dia. 
right wrongs and redress grievances, can read the 
foregoing pages without experiencing a desire to 
know in what way he can exercise his influence on behalf of 
fellow-subjects who seem so greatly to need help of some 
kind or other. Since my return from India, scarcely any- 
thing in the conduct of my countrymen has struck me more 
than their pathetic wish to uplift India, their strenuous desire 
to do something for the Indian people, if only they knew how 
to act, if they could only learn what there is for them to do. i 

The first requisite is to understand the people to whom we Firstrequisite. ' 
desire to give our friendliest help. Before everything else the Right under- 
Englishman's mind must be cleared of cant about the 
inferiority of the Indian and his excessively wicked character. ' 

I trust the earlier pages of this Letter will be useful in j 

helping some, at least, of my countrymen to believe better | 

things, to form a higher estimate, of the Queen's lieges in I 

India than they have hitherto been accustomed to do, not j 

from want of will, I am quite sure, but from want of i 

knowledge, or from their being the victims of prejudice. The • J 

view of the Indian people, which I have given, is not the I 

fashionable one : I know it is the true one so far as my own j 

personal observation is concerned, and so far as I have been I 

able to test experience in others. I also know that it is only j 

in the adoption by British electors of such a view as I have ; 

indicated, and by action appropriate taken thereupon, the i, 

regeneration of India may come. Then it may come, whence 
alone it can come, viz., from the sons of the soil. Only by 
remedial effect of this kind it is possible for us to cleanse out 



44 

souls, in however slight a degree, of the wrong we have done in 
the past. The way before us, to a better state of things, may 
be long, the difficulties in the path leonine : nevertheless there 
lies our duty. I am persuaded, if my fellow-countrymen 
could but appreciate things as they are in India, sooner or 
later, and sooner rather than later, the right course would be 
taken. 

The misconceptions which have to be cleared from our 
minds before we can hope to understand the needs of India 
do not apply to individuals merely : they affect the whole 
range of efforts commonly current relating to the country. 
Englishmen, as a rule, are not made acquainted with India as 
it is. Their conceptions generally are formed upon 
impressions gained from official utterances, the prevailing 
Roseate utter- tone of which is always roseate. That is, to the hasty glance. 

ances on India. 11- 

It is only by close research, and reading between the lines, 
that official documents, in many instances, are found to 
contain most damaging statements regarding our rule. On 
the face of things, all is smooth and satisfactory : the balance 
sheet for the year seems satisfactory. It is only afterwards 
that the accounts are found to be eight millions wrong, that 
this sum had actually been spent, when the accounts are made 
up, and no record of the expenditure appeared. Not wishing 
for a moment to impute to anyone a conscious desire 
to mislead, I cannot refrain from saying that a more complete 
misunderstanding is not possible than is contained in the 
ideas which maybe formed upon the statements of those who, 
from the official standpoint, address the English pubHc on 
Indian affairs. Dr. Hunter, the Editor of the Imperial Gazetteer 
of India, during his residence in Britain, has delivered lectures 
in Birmingham and elsewhere, on what England has done for 
India. In those lectures there is probably not a single assertion 
which, in itself, is not absolutely accurate, yet the whole 
Misleading in- effect of the dcHverance is sadly misleading. India, as it is 
formation. ^nown to those who have lived in the country, is hardly 
recognizable in Dr. Hunter's graphic descriptions. Still, even 
he, with all his predilections towards magnifying the good 



45 

and minimizing the bad of English rule, is unable to prevent Dr. Hunter 
the hideous truth in much of its painful nakedness occasion- 
ally becoming visible. The awful fact which I have put in the 
forefront in this Letter, viz., that forty millions of people are 
being continually on the verge of starvation, comes out, in Dr. 
Hunter's addresses, with reluctance, and as if against his will. 
Another example of the kind, but more glaringly unfair, is to 
be found in the handsome volume on ' India in 1880,' by Sir 
Richard Temple. Here, again, the facts cited, with one 
or two minor exceptions, cannot be gainsaid, but the 
total effect is inevitably to create a false impression. The 
'India' of Sir Richard Temple is steeped in rose-colour, and sir Richard 

^ ^ ^ ' Temple. 

is redolent with sweet perfumes. It is as correct a description 
of India in its varied moods as would be the exhibition of a 
picture — say, one of Sir Richard's own painting, which, in 
Indian galleries, have brought him no little praise — 
depicting the bewitching beauty of the morning dawn or 
evening twilight under tropical skies, which should be de- 
clared to be thoroughly satisfactory of all the moods, fierce 
noon-tide heat, terrible drought, awful cyclone, which the 
climate of India exhibits. Even the ghastly horrors of famine, 
and the maintenance of starving labourers on one pound 
weight of grain per day, in Sir Richard Temple's hands, 
become pleasant to the eye and endurable to the mind. 
India, although it has provided both fame and fortune to Sir 
Richard Temple and Dr. Hunter, ought not to be entrusted 
to them for exhibition — that is, if satisfaction is to be given 
either to Indians or to Britons, or, what is of greater 
importance, if violence is not to be done to truth. 

The effect of such misleading presentations of Indian ieSg\nforma'- 
afifairs is to cause English public men to go sadly astray ^^°^' 
when, animated by the best intentions, they want to under- 
stand India. Nothing has more absolutely shown the 
necessity for accurate information than an article published 
some time ago in the Nineteenth Century^ written by a 
scientific and popular Baronet, Member of Parliament for a 
learned constituency, whose general information is, as a rule, 



46 

of a most precise and definite character. The Anglo-Indian 
Reformer sighs as he reads the Baronet's mistakes, and feels 
that if such a man goes wrong there is little hope of the 
average politician being right. So long as the statements of 
those whose interest it is to say peace where there is no 
peace (though they may not recognise the fact, and speak and 
write in good faith) are relied upon, correct ideas of India are 
impossible. The contention of the writer in the Review was 

England ^'^^^ ^"^^^ ^^^ "° ^^^^^ ^^ Complaint against Great Britain, 
draining India, as she was not made to contribute anything to this country. 
In a direct form, it is true, no tribute is paid ; indirectly, how- 
ever, England is draining India, not simply of its surplus, but 
actually of its very life-blood. Shortly before the close of the 
last session of Parliament, the Marquis of Hartington, 
Secretary of State for India, in answer to a question, admitted 
that nearly three millions sterling per annum are paid from 
the revenues of India to persons not resident in that country, 
as pensions and furlough pay.* The people of India, who 
possess full knowledge of the facts, do not agree with the 
honourable Baronet that England makes no profit out of her 
Indian connection. The Hon. Kristo Das Pal, Bahadur, 
CLE., in a speech which he made at a public meeting in 
Calcutta, puts matters in a light very different from that 
which shines, as through a glass darkly, from the pages of the 
Military ex- "^"^^^'^ Rcvicw. The writer in the Review said, * So far as 
penditure. military expenditure is concerned, the greatest care is taken 
that India should pay nothing beyond what is necessary for 
the troops actually on duty there. It is amusing, if so serious 
a subject can be amusing, to see how energetically the India 
Ofiice resists any application made by the War Office for 
any charge beyond what the Indian authorities regard as 
absolutely necessary.' So much for theory. Now for facts. 
Said Mr. Kristo Das Pal, 'The War Office declares that a 
certain sum is needed ; that sum must be paid. The India 



, *Lord Hartington's reply, furnished to him by the India Office, contained a seri on <» 



47 

Office and the Government of India could not interfere in the 
matter. England supph'es the troops, and India is bound to 
pay whatever the conscience of the War Office demands. 
Then, it had been said that the principle on which the 
military charges were apportioned between England and 
India was one of joint partnership. Now, could a joint 
partnership exist between a giant and a dwarf.'* England English and 
was rich ; India was poor. England governed herself through ship unequaL^^" 
her House of Representatives ; India was scarcely able to 
send forth her voice across a distance of ten thousand miles. 
Here and there, indeed, there were a few Englishmen — dis- 
interested, philanthropic, warm-hearted Englishmen — who took 
an interest in the affairs of this country, but that was all. 
And yet they were told that the adjustment of military 
expenditure was conducted on the principle of joint partner- 
ship. If they examined the practical working of this joint 
partnership, what would they find ? That on no less than 
seven occasions troops were borrowed from India— first, for 
the China expedition; next, for the Crimean war; thirdly, india made to 
for the Persian expedition ; fourthly, for the second China l^it' ^"^^^^ 
expedition ; fifthly, for the first New Zealand expedition ; 
sixthly, for the second New Zealand expedition ; and, 
seventhly, for the Abyssinian war. All these were Imperial 
undertakings, but India had to furnish the troops with their 
pay and allowances. England, in fact, borrowed, and India 
paid. On the other hand, reinforcements were sent from 
England to India for the Sutlej campaign of 1846, the Panjab 
campaign of 1849, ^^^ for the mutiny campaign of 1857. • 
How did India meet her liabilities in these cases ^ She had 
to pay every fraction of the pay of the troops from the 
moment they left England.' This is but one of a host 
of instances I might cite, save for the fear of becoming weari- 
some. It may be easily imagined how depressing such 
mistakes as those exposed above are to Indian Reformers, who 
desire that Englishmen should be correctly informed on the 
affairs of our great Indian Empire ; and who desire that the 



taluk 



48 

medium through which those affairs are regarded should be 
colourless, 
na^^at'fauif^^ English newspapers can go hopelessly wrong in regard to 

Indian facts, as well as English statesmen. During the period 
of the last Madras Famine, a weekly metropolitan journal, 
whose voice, on all political matters Indian, is always heard on 
the right side, made some unfortunate blunders when dealing 
with irrigation. In an article written on the failure of the 
monsoon rains, and the means which should be adopted to 
minimise the evil, the writer gravely proposed to meet the 
dearth of water by sinking an artesian well in each taluk, 
AweUineach adding that this 'would reduce the losses of a famine year, at 

Inlr 

least by one-half, by rendering it possible to keep the animals 
alive.' Now, when it is remembered that the average size of 
a taluk in the Madras Presidency is seven hundred square 
miles, it will be pretty clear that the cattle at the outskirts will 
liave to travel far for their morning and evening draught, to 
say nothing of the miraculous nature of the well intended to 
support so large an area. Probably, when taluk was written, 
village was meant. But in the same article appeared the 
following passage : — ' We believe that the native form of irri- 
gaMing\7riga- gatiou, the formation of vast tanks, lakes, and reservoirs of 
water, the method which made Tanjore a garden, could be pur- 
sued to a much greater extent, without inordinate expense.' 
The writer ignores the Cauvery delta, and attributes the 
fertility of Tanjore to lakes, tanks, and reservoirs, the fact 
being that there is not, in the whole delta, a single tank, lake, or 
reservoir used for irrigation. There are, of course, small tanks 
in abundance used for bathing or drinking, or for cattle, but 
irrigation tanks there are none. There is a portion of the district, 
outside the limits of the delta, in which there may possibly be 
some irrigation tanks, but that region depends for its water 
Supply on local rains, and is no better off in a deficient monsoon 
than the surrounding famine districts. It is the delta alone that 
deserves the name of a garden. It is constantly assumed by 
English writers that what has been done in Tanjore might be 
repeated in every district of the Presidency. But this 



tion 



49 

supposition proceeds on complete ignorance of the climatic 
conditions of the country. The monsoon never fails altogether 
on the West Coast, and rivers that take their rise there may „ irrigation 

liniited by natu- 

always be depended upon. There are, of course, differences rai causes. 
from year to year, but a few inches below the average make 
little difference where the normal quantity is so large. The 
minimum rainfall on the West Coast seldom approaches what 
can be called a failure of the monsoon. The crops in Tanjore 
scarcely ever fail, because the water supply comes largely 
from the West Coast. Similar conditions to those that have 
created the fertility of Tanjore are found, to some extent, in 
the deltas of the Kistna and the Godavari rivers, but they are 
not found anywhere else in the Madras Presidency on a large 
scale. It ought not to be possible for mistakes of the character 
I have just mentioned to be made. 

The end which I, for one, have in view, viz., that the people English help 

r T -I' 1 • 1 1 '1 1 • • ■ r essential to In- 

01 India may obtain a large share in the administration of dian reform, 
their own country, can be attained if only a determination 
that it shall is come to by Englishmen. India is now con- 
trolled by the House of Commons. Whatever the House 
decides is done, no matter how disagreeable the decision may 
be to particular individuals, who would fain resist the will 
of the British people. To the remark which may be made, 
that to grant political power to the Indian people is to begin 
their regeneration at the wrong end, that we must wait 
for many years, and educate and train them still farther 
before we do anything of the kind suggested, the answer is 
easy. Our own country, and all the other countries on the 
globe which possess freedom, have shown that it is precisely National ad- 

. , . - vancement de 

in the same proportion as the mass of the population have some pendent upon 

popular free- 
share in the government of their country that great evils are dom. 

removed, that great advances are made. It was only a/Ur 

the Reform Bill of 1832, and the people properly so-called 

exercised influence on the Legislature, that the progress we 

are now so proud of was possible. P'reedom of trade, the 

repeal of the Navigation Laws, National Education, Land 

Law Reform in Ireland, have all followed from the broadening 

D 



50 

bf the base of power. Results of a like character would become 
apparent in India, if, with cautious wisdom, a similar course 
were pursued. Indeed, it is only as the scope for the exhibition 
of enterprise is provided for a nation that the enterprise can 
be displayed. Sir Thomas Munro, probably, the best Presi-; 
on^^india^'Sd-^ ^^^^y Govemor India has known, more than fifty years ago, 
vance. Uttered wise words, which ought now to be acted upon : ' There 

can be no hope,' he wrote, ' of any great zeal for improvement 
when the highest acquirements can lead to nothing beyond 
some petty office, and can confer neither wealth nor honour. 
While the prospects of the natives are so bounded, every pro- 
ject for bettering their character must fail, and no such pro- 
jects can have the smallest chances of success, unless some of 
these objects are placed within their reach, for the sake of 
which men are urged to exertion in other countries. This 
work of improvement, in whatever way it may be accepted, 
must be very slow, but it will be in proportion to the degree 
of confidence we repose in them, and to the share which we 
give them in the administration of public affairs.' Such slight 
changes as have been made since Sir Thomas Munro's time 
predictions" jus- ^^^^ morc than justified his predictions. India has within her 
tified. borders, — the careers of such men as Sir Salar Jung, Sir 

Madhava Rao, Sir Dinkur Rao, Mr. Seshiah Sastri, the Hon. 
Kristo Das Pal, and a host of others, bearing testimony in 
what they have done, — sons capable of meeting the grave 
financial and social perils of the Empire, if only it be made 
possible for them to work their way to the front. 

In India itself scarcely anything can be done in this 
forward action direction. It is not easy, in a free country, to understand the 
obstacles to resolute forward action in India. A significant 
instance of what I mean occurred between four and five years 
ago. Because certain private gentlemen, impressed with a 
sense of the awful condition of the famine-stricken people 
around them, held a public meeting, and appealed to England 
for assistance, and did not, before so acting, obtain the consent 
of the Government of India, then in dignified seclusion at 
Simla, strenuous attempts were made to discredit their appeal. 



51 

Only the resoluteness of the Relief Committee— resoluteness dew^^lhe 
amounting almost to defiance of the Viceroy's authority — pro- ^'^^^"^^y- 
cured a reversal of the Governmental action. This reversal 
was signified by the transmission from the Viceroy, in the 
name of the Governor of Madras, to the Lord Mayor of 
London, of a telegram, stating that a misunderstanding pre- 
vailed : his Excellency, it was stated, really blessed the move- 
ment he was supposed to have banned= As a matter of fact | 
his Excellency did bless the fund, for he gave ten thousand 
rupees to it and took a lively interest in the expenditure. But 
if the first ideas at Simla had prevailed, no fund would have 
been possible. In Calcutta, the Chief Justice of Bengal con- I 
vened a meeting to collect subscriptions to send to Madras : ^ 
pressure from Simla was applied there as it had been applied in 
Madras. Unfortunately, it was successful in Bengal, and for a 
time the founts of benevolence in Calcutta were partially dried 
up at a touch from the viceregal hand. This, which is a sample 
of what too often goes on in India when public opinion 
shows signs of movement, will serve to enforce what I have 
already said many times, viz., that effort on behalf of Indian 
reform which is to be of any service must proceed from the 
outside ; afterwards, local energy may be developed. 

What, it appears to me, can be done, without any loss of .Possible ac- 
time, is this : The National Liberal Federation might ^^ °° ^^ ' 
inscribe ' Justice for India ' on its banner, and appoint a Select com- 
Select Committee, whose duty it should be — ation. 

I. — To watch the course of events in India and in „ r>uties of a 

. . Select Commit 

England relating in any way to India ; *ee. 

2. — To enter into communication with all known 
Indian Reformers and Reform Associations in 
this country and in the Empire, with a view of 
concentrating English and Indian opinion upon 
useful projects ; 

3. — When occasion arises, the Executive Committee 
should be summoned, a statement of the cir- 
cumstances necessitating the call made, and the 
advisability of communicating with all the 
branches of the Federation considered ; and 



52 

4- — If it be decided that it would be well to move in 

relation to the particular matter under notice, 

then a draft resolution should be sent to all the 

branches, accompanied by a collection of facts, 

specially prepared, for discussion : the resolution 

passed thereupon to be forwarded to Parliament 

or to the Secretary of State for India, accordingly 

as Parliament was or was not sitting at the time. 

Instructed By the adoption of some such means as these, a body of 

f"rmed^opii5on. instructed and well-informed public opinion could be brought 

to bear at any moment that seemed desirable in the interests 

of the Empire. A double good would be effected. Our 

countrymen, in an attempt to help their fellow-subjects in 

India, would acquire a knowledge of that portion of the 

British Dominions which would be of the greatest benefit to 

them. Such an organization in this country would, 

through the recognised Associations in India — for example, 

the British Indian Association at Calcutta, the Sarvajanik 

Sabha in Poona, and others — be the means of throwing a flood 

of light upon matters now obscure. This is a duty which, I 

cannot but suppose, the members of the Federation will be 

proud to be instrumental in doing. 

Breadlines of There are broad lines of action which may be decided 

upon at once, without waiting for special organization or for 

definite information from or about India. Mr. Bright's 

speech at the Mansion House, London, early in August, has 

made it quite clear that the Government will spend a portion 

of the recess in considering the means which should be taken 

Business ar- ■, -r r ^ r • 

rangements in to rcHeve the Housc of Commous from its present congested 

Parliament. t • • • i r r • i 

condition. It is impossible, of course, for anyone not in the 
secrets of the Cabinet to say what means will be adapted to 
this end. But it is conceivable that the idea of Grand 
Grand Com- Committees for the discussion and arrangement of special 
departments of business will be considered. Upon that 
point, no doubt, the Federation, in its autumnal campaign, 
will have much to urge, in the way of suggestions, upon the 
Government. What I would beg is, that one of the points 



i 

I 

53 i 

1 
t 

specially taken up should be this, — that an Indian Committee, parilanSSy \ 
consisting either wholly of Members of the House of ^''™"''"®®- 
Commons, or partly of Commons and partly of Peers, should 
be constituted : to them all proceedings relating to India, of 
whatever kind, should be submitted. Mr. Robert Knight, " 

whose knowledge of the Empire is very great, in a proposals. * 
Memorandum on India, which he has recently written, 
suggests that the Secretary of State for India should be a 
permanent official, and that a Committee of Members of the 
Houses of Peers and Commons six in number, should be 
associated with the Indian Secretary. For many reasons I 
think such a Committee would be too small ; I do not see, 
either, why members of the hereditary branch of the Legisla- 
ture should be equal in number with the elected representa- 
tives of the country. What is wanted, above all things, in 
such a Committee is the fresh and healthy political feeling 
derivable only from the constituencies. Mr. Knight also urges Permanent 
the appointment of a Permanent Committee, which, again, I gesTed!"^^ ^"^ 
think a mistake. Let the members be eligible for re-election, 
but do not let them be irremovable. However, these are 
mere matters of detail. The great thing is the principle of 
having all Indian affairs brought prominently and regularly 
before this country.* Towards securing such an object, the 
Association I am addressing could exercise most powerful 
influence. 

*In his Memorandum, Mr, Knight makes the following remarks, concerniDg a Perma- 
nent Committee : — It might be wise to appoint a Permanent Parliamentary Committee, to 
which all proceedings whatever of the India Office were submitted without reserve. Were 
such a Committee chosen from the few men in the two Houses who really know India, and 
were the proceedings of the India Office regularly submitted to their inspection, they would 
constitute an efficient " audit " of Indian affairs. They should have power to call for the 
most confidential, the most secret, documents ; and it would be their duty to bring before 
Parliament, and openly oppose therein, proceedings which they did not approve. They 
should have no power to do more than "report " to Parliament, and to lay bare before it 
the true character of our proceedings, that the nation might not be deceived and misled, as 
it now is, at all points concerning India. Such a Committee would be the "eye 'of 
Parhament over all that was being done by the Indian Government. In the course of a very 
few years, the members who had been on this Permanent Committee would know all that it 
is essential for Parliament to know concerning the details of our administration. The 
occasions would not be numerous when they would find it necessary to "report" at all; 
while their support of the Secretary for India in Parliament itself would be a guarantee of 
the propriety and wisdom of his proceedings, as the Committee should, of course, be 
selected without regard to Party. 

And this great change in the character of the Secretaryship should be attended by a 
change of equal moment m the Indian Council. As now constituted, that Council is power- 
less for any good purpose. It has degenerated into a sort of outwork for defending the 
existing order of things in India, and for arresting all reform in our rule of that country. 
While the Council as now constituted is maintained, it will simply obstruct evei-y reform 
that does uo^ recommend itself to the conyentional views and prejudices of its civilian 



54 



Legislative 
Councils in In- 
dia. 



Defects in ex- 
isting Councils. 



Governor pre- 
siding, checks 
free speech. 



Powers pos- 
sessed by Coun- 
cillors. 



No control 
over political, 
financial, or 
other matters. 



In relation to the Legislative Councils which exist in 
India, a great work has to be done which, I feel convinced, 
the Federation could accomplish. Some people, who know 
that India is ruled despotically, may be surprised to learn 
that there are Legislative Councils in the Empire. The 
Councils, however, are merely rudimentary institutions. No 
regular session is arranged for. The members are called 
together when the Governor-General, Governor, or Lieutenant- 
Governor thinks well to summon them. Each Presidency 
and Province has its Council. It consists generally of from 
twelve to fifteen members. Government officials forming a 
large majority. The ruler of the Empire, Presidency, or 
Province, presides over the Council, and by virtue of the 
power he possesses, and the influence he exerts, practically 
prevents even such plain-spoken observations as the rules 
would permit. The non-official members are selected by the 
Governor, one for each race in the Presidency or Province. 
The duties of the members are strictly confined to a con- 
sideration of new laws ; these laws are submitted by the 
Government. The non-official members have no power of 
initiation. They are not allowed to ask any questions— 
either political, financial, social, or of any kind whatsoever. 
The Presidency or Provincial Budget is never so much as 
mentioned in the Council. A more anomalous position than 
that of these Councillors can scarcely be conceived : the 

members It should be done away with. It has become something very unpleasantly like 
Td^vice for incSsing the retiring allowances of men who have all their lives drawn 
fmmlnse allowaSs^n India and "amassed fortunes in that country, and to whom it 
iBtenselv pleasant to have their pension of £1,000 a year augmented by another £1,200 at 
"he fost of the people of India, upon the pretext that they are earning this extra allowance 
by sti?l devotingSnselves to the' service of that country. The English official members of 
SeCouncU are allowed no such right, but draw only their Council allowances. .Is it too 
much to eiptct that men who, upon the strength of their twenty-five years' service inlnma, 
S-e hi lecelprof very handsome pensions from its people, should on their retirement become 
riAioVJiw^cfuncIffor Her Majesty's Secretary of State? ,];^St\o%Ta'^?fat^Etlo'^ 
selfish in our every arrangement concerning India. It is thought to be a great iionour lor 
HefLTesty to appoint the most distinguished of our public men at home to her Privy 
Coundf without pay of any kind for the service required of them Why should it be 
nSssary to pay Her Slaiesty's Council of India, already handsomely provided for by the 
itate, an St^saYary of-£l,200ayearsimp^^ 

an hour or two a week upon the conduct of its affairs?" Let the becretaiy ot tetate be 
nermanent aTd let the Indian Council be an honorary body composed of retired Indians of 
S daises 'wlthf reputation for ability and high character, whether they ai^ official or 
non official ^ny dis iguished Indian judge, lawyer, or merchant should be eligible 
thereto Native gentiemSn and native princes might also be invited to sojourn m 1-r.gxaud 
bv^Tesero-S compliment of askii.g them to come here to advise Her Majesty what she 
must do fo^lS to rule it wislly and well. The Council of India should be a kind of 
SyCoVndlwMch Her Majesty's sLretary of State could summon to ad^^^^ with hm m 
emergencies which must arise in a rule so strange as that of the Indian Empire. 



on a ,s 



55 

amount of good they are able to effect is of the most in- co?ndiT^?ho il 

appreciable kind. If English attention were directed first J^equisito. | 

towards a reform of these institutions, a beginning would be |j 

made which would constitute all other changes and develop- 1 

ments possible : without reform of these Councils nine-tenths of | 

any exertion put forth would be wasted. About four-and-a-half | 

years ago, while editing a daily newspaper in Madras, I 

strongly advocated the establishment of Representative 

Assemblies, sketching in outline such a Chamber as that 

Presidency is, not merely fit for, but urgently needs to quicken 

the rich but stagnant mental life of the Madrasses of all j 

classes and creeds. And, what is true of Madras is true also 

of Bengal and other parts of the Empire. Less than ten 

years ago, when speaking at Dacca, Sir George Campbell, be^f^LP.?on^^ 

M.P., then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, said that he g^S^mo??.''"^ 

looked forward to a time when a Bengali House of Commons 

would be created. The chief points of the scheme I put 

forward, while in India, were as follow : — 

I. — The creation of a Presidency Assembly, in which a Presidency 

1 ^ , _> • /^ -1 TT T-' Assembly : its 

the members of the Executive Council, ri.E. constitution. 
the Governor excepted, should have seats ex 
officio ; also the Advocate General. In this 
♦ Assembly, in addition, should sit {a) twenty 

Collectors (chief administrators of districts larger 
than many English counties) ; {b) six European, 
Eurasian and Native nominated members ; and 
{c) twelve European, Eurasian, and Native 
elected members. Qualification for a vote 
might be found in the jury lists, proved owner- 
ship of landed property, or payment of the 
profession tax. (An Assembly so constituted 
would leave the Government what, under exist- 
ing circumstances, they should have, viz., a clear 
majority on any matter which might arouse 
much discussion and occasion great interest, or 
in relation to a measure which they felt the 
interests of the country demanded should be 



56 



Financial con- 
trol. 



Right of queS' 
tioning. 



Introduction 
of Bills. 



Burl fret to be 
annually presen- 
ted. 



Fixed time of 

meeting. 



Governor- 
General's Veto. 



Subsidiary 
States be re- 
presented. 



Suggestions 
approven by — 



(1) Anglo-In- 
dians. 



(2) Natives. 



carried, even though the majority of the As- 
sembly thought otherwise.) 
2. — To such an Assembly Financial control should 
be given to this extent, viz., with the exception of 
Fixed Establishments, which should be discussed 
only with the consent of the Secretary of State 
first asked for and obtained, every vote of money 
should be open to scrutiny and question ; and 
(if permission had previously been given to 
Government Members to vote as they thought 
fit), on a majority being recorded against any 
particular vote, it could not be passed. 
3. — Non-official members to have the right to put 
questions to Government on their general jx)licy, 
or on a public matter. 
4. — Non-official members to have the right to intro- 

troduce Bills not dealing with public funds. 

5. — The Budget to be annually presented, and 

debated upon. No money to be spent until the 

same had been voted, Fixed Establishments 

excepted. 

6.— The Assembly to meet at certain fixed periods of 

the year. 
7. — The Governor-General to have the power to veto 
any Bill or Money Vote, subject to appeal to the 
Secretary of State for India, or the Home 
Government. 
8. — Under certain defined arrangements, subsidiary 
States, such as Travancore, Cochin, &c., to be per- 
mitted to send representatives to the Assembly. 
There was not a class in the community which did not 
hail these suggestions with heartiness. English merchants, 
true to their national character, were strongly in favour of some 
such change as was indicated. To men, nurtured in the free 
air of England, life in the despotically-ruled cities of India, is 
like breathing in a partially exhausted air-receiver. The intelli- 
gent Hindus and Mussalmans of Madras, seeing the increased 



57 i 

it 

importance and power such an Assembly would give to their \ 

national existence, and recognizing the scope it would afford J 

for individual usefulness, gave the suggestions their hearty j 

approval. Even Members of the Civil Service approved it. ^g^^^'^ ^^'■' | 

One of the Executive Councillors declared that Southern (4) Executive '| 

11 1 J Councillors. ; 

India was quite ripe for such an Assembly, and that untold ^ 

good would follow from its establishment. Nevertheless, the | 

agitation I sought to initiate, came to nothing. It made a slight ^^^^^^^^^ |i 
ripple on the surface of everyday talk, and then passed why. 
away. Nor do I wonder that such was the case, although I 
deeply regretted at the time the apathy exhibited, and the 
many obstacles in the way of attracting attention to the 
matter. Afterwards the famine of i Syy diverted all attention 
from schemes of reform for a time. I see now more 
forcibly than I did then the utter futility of agitation in 
India alone ; unless there be simultaneous agitation to the 
same end in England no good can be done. Previously, in 
Ceylon, when condemning the food-taxes and revenue- 
farming system in that island, I found that until I had 
enlisted the help of the Cobden Club, and the services in 
Parliament of Mr. T. B. Potter, M.P. for Rochdale, I was 
nearly helpless. With these aids the task of attracting 
attention to serious evils became comparatively easy of accom- 
plishment. 

In advocating the reform of the Legislative Councils of counSfRelorm 
India, Englishmen would be on perfectly safe ground. By no ^^®- 
possibility could the charge of want of information, if 
brought by Interested opponents, be honestly employed 
against the Federation. But, what is of far greater importance, 
the establishment of such Assemblies would lead the way to, 
and prepare the people for, that change in the administration 
of India which must come some day ; until it does come little 
hope for real Indian rule can be cherished. 

The remark I have iust made has no relation to the Mr.Bright's 

•' proposals in 

giving up of India, but to the proposal made by Mr. Bright, issi. 
in 1858, when the India Bill was under consideration in the 
House of Commons, viz., that the country should be divided 



ss 

Presidenciet'' ^^^0 five or SIX Presidencies or Provinces, each under a 
separate Governor, who should be in direct communication 
with the Secretary of State. In each Presidency there should 
be an Assembly. It has been Mr. Bright's good fortune, as 
a statesman, to find that most of the advance posts he occupied 
by virtue of his prescient mind at the beginning of his political 
career have formed camping grounds for the main army of pro- 
gress. His proposal with regard to India will, I believe, yet 
rank with his fulfilled prophecies on such subjects as Free 
Trade, Parliamentary Reform, Abolition of Church Rates, 
Land Law Reform, and other matters. All that I have seen 
of India, all that I have learned of its peoples and their needs, 
all that I have thought upon urgent changes, compel me to 
ide%fac§cSie^^^ conclusion that to work for Mr. Bright's ideal is to work 
and necessary, {q^ ^ reform not merely practicable but highly necessary ; 
and also, practically, to bring the Empire within a measurable 
distance of thoroughly good and stable Government, wherein 
the scandal of forty millions of people remaining in a state 
of semi-starvation year after year shall be impossible. We 
cannot hinder that condition of things by our action, as we 
have proved : the people of India may prevent it by their own 
efforts. 

The passages from Mr. Bright's speech of June 24, 1858, 
to which I have referred, may be cited at length. They meet, in 
a satisfactory v/ay, the initial objections which would be urged 
by those opposed to such reforms on their re-presentation. 
Mr. Bright said : — 
Presidencies, ' I would proposc that wc should havc Presidencies, and 

not an Empire. i. t- • t r t 

not an Empire. If I were a mmister, which the House will 
admit is a bold figure of speech, and if the House were to 
agree with me, which is also an essential point, I would 
Five Presi- P^^P^^^ ^^ ^^ve, at least, five Presidencies in India, and I 
d^em^ies : equal would havc the Governments of those Presidencies perfectly 
equal in rank and in salary. The capitals of those Presi- 
dencies would probably be Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Agra, 
and , Lahore. I will take the Presidency of Madras as an 
illustration. Madras has a population of some 20,000,000. 



59 

We all know its position on the map, and that it has the , 
advantage of being more compact, geographically speaking, I 
than the other Presidencies. It has a Governor and a Council. i 
I would give to it a Governor and a Council still, but would ' 
confine all their duties to the Presidency of Madras, and I / ; 
would treat it just as if Madras was the only portion of India dency seif-con- j 
connected with this country. I would have its finance, its * * i 
taxation, its justice, and its police departments, as well as its ; 
public works and military departments, precisely the same as ^ 
if it were a State having no connection with any other part of 
India, and recognized only as a dependency of this country. 
I would propose that the Government of every Presidency cSrlfond with 
should correspond with the Secretary for India in England,* gfat?®*^^^ °^ I 
and that there should be telegraphic communications between ; 
the officQ of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) and every Presi- 
dency over which he presides. I shall, no doubt, be told that j 
there are insuperable difficulties in the way of such an arrange- ! 
ment, and I shall be sure to hear of the military difficulty. cuUy conSdemi j 
Now, I do not profess to be an authority on military affairs, \ 
but I know that military men often make great mistakes. I * 
would have the army divided, each Presidency having its own i 
army, just as now, care being taken to have them kept distinct ; 
and I see no danger of any confusion or misunderstanding, j 
when an emergency arose, in having them all brought together j 
to carry out the views of the Government. \ 
' Now, suppose the Governor-General gave the Presi- separlte *?resi- i 
dencies established, the Governors equal in rank and dignity, ^'^^^^' \ 
and their Councils constituted in the manner I have indicated, 
is it not reasonable to suppose that the delay which has i 
hitherto been one of the greatest curses of your Indian Govern- delays avoided j 
ment would be almost altogether avoided .'' Instead of a i 
Governor-General living in Calcutta or at Simla, never I 

"^ Direct correspondence with the Secretary of State is a privilege which the Presidency , 

of Madras retains as a survival of old times. Good use of this privilege was made in 1878 by j 

the (then) Governor of Madras, who, when compelled by the Government of India to adopt ; 

Sir Richard Temple's 1-lb. starvation allowance for famine labourers, appealed to England, ! 
and procured permission to set aside superior orders. The wisdom of Mr. Bright's sug- 
gestion was then strikingly manifested. Many thousands of lives Avere saved by the direct 
appeal to England.— W. D. 



6o 

travelling over the whole of the country, and knowing very little 

about it, and that little only through other official eyes, is it not 

Goyernmentai i*easonable to suppose that the action of the Government would 

action more be more direct in all its duties, and in every department of its 

service, than has been the case under the system which has 

existed until now ? Your administration of the law, marked 

Lawadmieistra- by SO much disgracc, could never have lasted so long; as it has 

tion improved, j •/• ^ 

done, if the Governors of your Presidencies had been indepen- 
dent Governors. So with regard to matters of police, education, 
Presidencies public- works, and everything that can stimulate industry, and 

rivals m good •' ^ J ^ 

works. SO With regard to your system of taxation. You would have 

in every Presidency a constant rivalry for good. The Governor 
. of Madras, when his term of office expired, would be delighted 
to show that the people of that Presidency were contented, 
that the whole Presidency was advancing in civilization, that 
roads and all manner of useful public works were extending 
that industry was becoming more and more a habit of the 
people, and that the exports and imports were constantly 
increasing. The Governors of Bombay and the rest of the 
Presidencies would be animated by the same spirit, and so you 
would have all over India, as I have said, a rivalry for good ; 
you would have placed a check in that malignant spirit of 
Incidental ad- ambition whlch has worked so much evil, you would have no 

vantages. . . . 

Governor so great that you could not control him ; none who 
might make war when he pleased ; war and annexation would 
be greatly checked, if not entirely prevented ; and I do, in my 
conscience, believe you would have laid the foundation for a 
better and more permanent form of Government for India 
than has ever obtained since it came under the rule of Eng- 
land.' * 
Mr. Bright's To the eye of an observer, unacquainted, by residence in 

Ideas practical. _,. -ti i .. r ^ T»/rT~.«i> 

India, with the actual necessities of that country, Mr. Bright s 
remarks must carry conviction. I have only to add that to 
one who knows India they seem to meet the situation with 
perfect nicety. I will not go into particulars, showing the 

* Speeches by the Right Hon. John Bright, M.P. Edited by J. Thorold Rogers, M.P. 
Vol. i., pp. 50-53. (Macmillan & Co., London, 1869.) Second Edition. 



6i 

differences between the various portions of the Empire which EmphtrendS^ 
render it advisable that each Presidency should have its own ^^ange needful, 
almost independent administration. Such particulars can be 
furnished in due time, should, as I hope will be the case, they 
be wanted. It is as unfair to the respective peoples of India 
that they should be ruled by a centralized and distant authority, ^^^^^^^.^^^ 
as it would be for France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, with Europe. 
Portugal, Holland, Denmark, and Belgium, to become vassals 
of one monarch, and that monarch an Asiatic, compelHng the 
adoption of Asiatic methods of rule. 

Not the least conspicuous nr.erit in Mr. Bright's proposal Political self- 
is that it would teach the Indian people poHtical self-reliance. 
In scores of ways which no one can forecast, as no one can 
positively set forth the possible developments of the future, by 
granting them a measure of self-government the utmost con- 
ceivable service would be done for our Indian fellow-subjects. ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ 
I can imagine no grander, no more noble, work for the National ?4i^S"t'\e"Fe(i- 
Liberal Federation than that it should make Justice for ^^^jjl^^^^^y ''^«- 
India one of its leading objects. Such a task as I have, in 
outline, indicated in the foregoing pages must some day be 
performed by one Association or another in this country if 
Englishmen are to show themselves worthy of their position 
and mindful of their duty to their fellow-subjects in the East. 
It is a task which, under the terrible peril of an awful harvest if 
neglected, must not be avoided. Our responsibilities in 
India are of our own seeking. I-et us, as Englishmen, see to 
it that no desire for ease, no aversion to the trouble of 
familiarising ourselves with unfamiliar facts, no sneers from 
parties interested in maintaining the present system, turn us 
aside from at least attempting to do our duty. 

No time could be more propitious for action than the ^maent^time 
present, i.e., regarding the affairs of both England and India on 
the whole. India is receiving at the hands of Mr. Gladstone's 
Government a measure of justice and consideration to which 
it has not been accustomed. After nearly two hundred years 
of a precisely opposite policy, Mr. Gladstone has inaugurated a 
new policy in making arrangements for this country to bear a 



62 



portion of the cost of the recent Afghan wars. The people of 
England fully approve of what has been done, and are 
animated with the most friendly sentiments towards their 
fellow-subjects in the East. The occasion for forward action 
is ripe : the question is, Are we ready ? 



Wm. DIGBY. 

COROMANDEL, FORD PARK, MllTLEY, 

Plymouth; October, 1881. 





POSTSCRIPT. 

INCE this Letter was written, and while the pasres important 

' ^ ^ Minute by 

are passing through the Press, information has Government of 
been received from India of the issue of an im- 
portant Minute by the Government. Only an 
outline of the document has yet reached this country, but 
enough has been published to give great force to the 
suggestions which I have made. On the line of Mr. Bright's 
proposals considerable progress has from time to time been 
made ; a further step has just been taken. It now 
rem.ains for English electoral opinion, exerted through the 
House of Commons, to take care that with the partial 
decentralization of finance shall proceed thoroucfh decentrali- . Decenf.raUza- 

■^ ° , tion of Finance. 

zation in other respects. The Governor-General in Council 
hopes that the extension of the scheme for the decentrali- 
zation of the finances will develop local self-governmont. goyernmenf^' 
To this end the Provincial Governments are instructed to 
make a careful scrutiny of their accounts, with a view of 
ascertaining what items of receipt and charge can be trans- 
ferred from the provincial to the local heads for administration 
by a committee comprising non- official and, wherever possible, indiAn Govern- 
elected members, and also what measures are necessary for Sectedmlmbers 
the purposes of introducing more local self-government, 
equalizing local and municipal taxation throughout the 
Empire, checking severe or unsuitable imposts, and favouring 
forms most accordant with the popular opinion or sentiment, wm of the 
Then follow details regarding the treatment of the principal tameS.^^^'^^^ 
heads of the receipts and charges, the general result being 
that nearly three-fifths of the revenue and about one-fourth of 
the expenditure of British India will be provincialized. 

The Gazette of India^ in giving details of this policy, says ado^tSf''^^^^ 
tliat in the first place it is proposed to apply to the whole of 



64 

^Mnoipieadop- India the principle upon which the most recent settlement — 
namely, that with Burmah in 1879 — was framed. That 
principle is that, instead of giving to the local Governments a 
fixed sum to make good any excess In the provincial expendi- 
ture over the provincial receipts, a certain proportion of the 
Imperial revenue of each province should be devoted to this 
object. Certain heads of the revenue will be reserved as 
Imperial, others divided between Imperial and provincial, 
and the rest made wholly provincial. The balance of the 
transfers being against the provinces will be rectified by 
assigning to each province a fixed percentage on its land 
revenue. In Bengal this will amount to 38 per cent. ; in 
Madras, 26 per cent. ; in Bombay, 50 per cent. ; in the North- 
West Provinces, 22 per cent. ; in the Panjab, 43 per cent. ; 
in the Central Provinces, 48 per cent. ; in Assam, 49 per 
cent. ; and in Burmah, 33 per cent. It is hoped that the 
result of this system will be to give to the Provincial Govern- 
ments a direct Interest in the most important item of the 
Imperial revenue raised within their own province. Here, 
again, one of the principles laid down by Mr. Bright is made 
of service by the Indian Government of to-day. Where so 
much has been granted more may be obtained. 

Increased re- Following the abovc, is 3 proposal which is of the 

^^Proviniiai^ highest importance. More responsibility is to be thrown 

ovemmen . ^^^^ ^^iQ Provincial Governments than they now possess. It 
would be cruel to the Indian people to grant this additional 
responsibility to the Provincial authorities, and allow it to be 
held in the alien hands which have not done wisely 
and well with the power they already possess. It is intended 
by the Viceroy's Minute to modify the existing arrangements 
Financial between the Imperial and Provincial Governments regarding 
the resources granted in the event of fiscal misfortune, such as 
a heavy loss on the Opium revenue, or a national disaster, 
such as a war or a severe famine. It is declared, on the one 
hand, that the local Governments must look for no special aid 
except in case of severe famine, and then only within certain 
limits ; and, on the other hand, that the Imperial Government 



Antonomy. 



65 , 

will make no demand on them except in case of a disaster so I 

abnormal as to exhaust the Imperial reserves and necessitate ^ 

the suspension of the entire machinery of public improvement. Provinces toi 

A-j-iii- A. -I ' . * ,. meet their own' 

Ala wni oe given to the provmces m a severe famme only if calamities. 
the current provincial income during the period of the distress 
has been exhausted, and if the accumulated savings of the 
past years, in excess of the ordinary working balance, have 
been drawn upon to the extent of two-thirds of the total 
amount. The margin of the provincial income over the 
expenditure in normal years will be made Hable for the 
completion of the relief works begun during the famine, or 
will be chargeable to the extent of one-fourth for the payment 
of the interest on the Imperial loans contracted to meet the 
cost cf the famine. The Imperial Government expresses the 
hope that if a sufficient surplus accrues at the close of the 
current financial year it may be able to restore to the 
Provincial Governments the contributions, aggregating sixty- 
seven lakhs {£6yo,ooo), made by them for the Afghan war, 
on the receipt of satisfactory assurances that these amounts 
will be devoted to productive public works. I am indebted 
for the summary of this important Minute to T/te Times' 
Indian telegram of October loth. 

When I began my Letter, nothing beyond the con- of^JSSrtS 
spicuous act of justice which Mr. Gladstone has performed ^"^^ ^'*'''°- 
in respect to the Afghan war expenditure justified me in em- 
ploying the present time for urging the importance of Indian 
affairs upon my countrymen. But, before my pleadings have 
an opportunity of meeting the eyes of those to whom they are 
addressed, the most appropriate of all occasions for forward 
and vigorous action in this country has revealed itself. 
While, on the one hand, there is no time to be 
lost, on the other there is sufficient time to concert means, 
and upon those means to take action in next session of 
Parliament. All that is done in the Viceroy's Minute which Minut?'"°reco..i- 
is summarised above, is recommendatory. No actual step °^®"*^**°^ °"^y- 
has been taken. The Provincial Governments are merely 
instructed to ' make enquiry.' Now, to carry out thoroughly 

E 



66 

the spirit of the new proposals, and make them what 

Mr. Bright suggested in his '58 speeches, and also to make 

EngHah assis- them really effective for good, English effort is needed. It 

tanoe needed. •' o » o 

would be too much to expect from human nature — at least, 
from Anglo-Indian official human nature, which is sensitive 
to criticism to an abnormal degree — that the Provincial 
Governments of India will report favourably of a proposal 
which will place their every act under scrutiny, and render 
every officer in their employ amenable to public criticism, and, 
it may be, to rebuke not merely in the newspaper Press, but 
in a partially-elective Assembly also. If Lord Ripon's Minute 
is to do any good, it must be supplemented by earnest action 
in Great Britain, and by special efforts in the House of Com- 
mons, which is now the controlling power in Indian affairs. 
When officials in the position of the Viceroy of India and 
his Council go so far as to admit that the people of India 
have the right to a voice in the administration of nearly 
three-fifths of the revenue, and about one-fourth of the ex- 
penditure, of their country, it is clear that the need for reform is 
very pressing. None in this country know better than the 
members of the National Liberal Federation how slow heads 
of departments and permanent officials, save in very excep- 
tional instances, are to confess that things could possibly be 
better than they are at any given moment. Outside agitation 
is always needed in Great Britain to initiate reform, and to 
make beneficial change possible. The same thing is true, in 
a hundred-fold degree, as regards India, of any real and sub- 
stantial reform. But, as I have shown in the preceding pages, 
agitation there is practically unknown, and is not to be too 
readily encouraged. More may be done by judicious and 
amply-instructed effort in England than possibly could be 
done in India. 

I venture to hope that, at this crisis, when an unexpected 
tendency towards Liberalising the institutions of India is 
exhibited by the Indian Government, English aid will not be 
wanting. If properly dealt with, the Minute issued at Calcutta 
on the 8th October may be found to constitute a new Charter 



67 

of the liberties of the people of India. Hitherto the political 
organizations of this country have existed for purposes almost, 
if not entirely, p ersonal to the inhabitants of Great Britain. 
If it should prove that the National Liberal Federation is 
prepared to enter upon duties involving not a little self- 
sacrifice, bringing no reward to the workers therein save the 
consciousness of the right course having been attempted, but 
having as their ultimate result the benefiting of the hundreds 
of millions of the people of India, it will be made clear that the 
sense of public duty in the present day has been lifted to a 
higher level than usual, and that the standard of EngHsh politi- 
cal character is nobler than it has hitherto been. Should my 
anticipations prove correct, the new Minute on Indian 
Financial Decentralization will, through English effort have 
issues undreamt of by the Council of Notables who sent it 
forth.— W. D. 




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